Jason Cherkis

Unintentional Shooting Kills Friend, Torments Shooter: 'Why Did I Pick Up The Gun?'

2013-05-09T08:15:08-04:00

Kingsley Rowe, 43, has both a bachelor's degree in information systems management and a masters in social work from New York University. He has a wife and a 1-year-old daughter. What he doesn’t tell people: He unintentionally killed his friend with a handgun in 1988. This is his story as told to HuffPost's Jason Cherkis.

When I got home for Thanksgiving holiday, my younger brother told me he had a handgun in the house. I don’t know how he got the gun. He was involved in the streets at the time and I suspect it was obtained through those circles. I was living in Washington, D.C., working for the FBI as a clerk. I just delivered mail around the FBI headquarters. I was in the midst of applying to Howard University.

It was a Raven MP-25.

I remember thinking how exciting it was: Wow, you have a gun. What are you doing with that? Where did you get that from? My brother didn’t really say anything much regarding how he obtained the gun. He just told me not to touch it. I had never touched a gun before. I didn’t have the friends who would normally carry around handguns.

I don’t remember if I knew where it was. He had it in his room. But I found it. I had no reason to take it out.

I was so impulsive at the time. I took medication most of my adolescence basically for ADHD. I still take medication now. When I saw the gun, I didn’t think about what could happen. None of those things entered my mind. If they did enter my mind, it was very fleeting. Wow, this is a real gun. That’s more of like what I was thinking when I saw it.

I put the Raven in my pocket. It was a pretty small handgun. There were bullets in the gun.

It felt like, you know, I don’t know how to describe it. You walk around the street and you have this sense that you are stronger than you actually are, tougher than you actually are.

I just turned 18 a couple months before that. I was 6’1, 6’2. At the time, I weighed 200 pounds, 220. I really didn’t fit well into my neighborhood. All the people in my South Philadelphia neighborhood felt like I was soft. I was good in school. I was always on South Street hanging out with skateboarder kids. I was a good writer -- my favorite subject. As a child, I always read Time, Newsweek, and The New York Times. I’m very big into The Autobiography of Malcolm X, Manchild in the Promised Land, and The Catcher in the Rye. My mom didn’t allow me to really hang out on the street.

Several people in the house knew there was a gun and didn’t say anything to my mother. My older sister, my younger sister, and my aunt. But nobody actually told my mom that it was actually in the house. I should have.

I met Raenelle Cerdan, 20, on the corner of my block. She was one of the first, like, girlfriends I had. She had a crush on me. I had a crush on her. It took like four or five weeks for me to say something to her. I worked at a variety store and she would come and buy stuff. She was in college going to Millersville. She was a sophomore or a junior. She wasn’t like the girls in my neighborhood. She was just really understanding. She was kind of shy, just like I was.

We never had sex or anything. We just hung out. I didn’t date much. I was just like a kid. I was pretty afraid of women actually. I don’t know if I was mature enough. She was not the first person I ever kissed, but she was like one of the first people I started dating when I was out of school. We would sit on her stoop and talk. We would take walks and go to the park. Her mother was on drugs at the time. We used to talk about that a lot. I talked about hopefully going to Howard University. She was positive, she had substance.

But our relationship never materialized as a couple. Raenelle only knew me since the summertime -- June of '88. We weren’t meant to be partners. I was living in D.C. She had other things she wanted to do -- in college, with her life. We just kept in touch when I moved away.

We went to her aunt’s house and hung out there. We just sat around. I talked about what I was doing at the FBI. It was Thanksgiving evening 1988. After about 20 minutes, I told her aunt that I had a gun. She said I should take it home immediately. That’s when I began to get a little afraid. She said “you really need to take that home. Someone can get hurt.” Those were her exact words to me as I remember them.

I should have known better. I knew people that were murdered in the street. I’ve known people who were shot and killed. Until she said that to me, I didn’t connect the dots. It connected back to my own experience -- what the hell am I really doing with this? I’m working for the FBI. The gravity of having a gun started to dawn on me.

I walked out the house. I knew the Raven was loaded. I fumbled with it to take the cartridge out. I don’t know anything about the bullet in the chamber. It was a few people on the street. Raenelle was walking in front of me. I didn’t have any awareness of her. I’m looking down at the gun. And it’s pointed sort of up. It’s in my hand sideways. I’m sweating.

Raenelle is saying “Come on Kingsley. Come.” That was the last thing she said to me.

Everything is happening and then all the sudden the gun goes off.

When it went off, all I saw was Raenelle fall backwards. Everything just froze. I was in shock, just in shock.

I dropped the gun.

I went over to Raenelle and she was unconscious then the family was over her. The aunt did come out –- I believe she was crying and screaming at me. It’s very painful to remember everything. When I say it out loud, "I shot her," it feels so callous -– like there’s intent there. I shot her. it’s hard to say that. It’s just hard to say.

Raenelle was hit behind her ear. The police came. They put handcuffs on me and they put me in the back of the car. Some stupid person at the scene of the crime took the gun, actually took the weapon.

I stayed in jail for approximately a week to two weeks. My father bailed me out. These were his exact words to my mother: “I cannot see him like this.”

I was praying for Raenelle not to die. She never came to. She died about nine or 10 days later. My attorney called me and told me that they were going to probably come and arrest me. I turned myself in. I went to the precinct and they took custody of me. I wanted to kill myself when she passed away.

When I was actually remanded, they put me on suicide watch. I didn’t eat much, I didn’t go out for activities. After I made bail, I was on the street for a year before the trial. When I would see Raenelle’s family in the street, I would get different responses. Sometimes the aunt would scream at me. Sometimes she would hug me. She would just be crying. I didn’t even know what to say.

I was really depressed for a long time. I began to take medicine. I was taking Prozac. I was on Klonopin. I take different ones now. It was just unbearable to deal with. I contemplated suicide all the time.

Maybe I could take some pills. I don’t know what really kept me from doing it. My mother was trying to be strong for me. I just thought if I killed myself it would be a double tragedy for everyone. People gave me books to help me through -– Dostoyevsky’s Crime and Punishment. I found that book very helpful. My attitude at the time: If I don’t kill myself, anything that happens to me I deserve it.

Why did I pick up the gun? I think about that question every day.

I was charged with third-degree murder. I just pled guilty. I was guilty. I wasn’t offered no deal. There were no negotiations around what the sentence might be at all. I was completely guilty. I didn’t care about the punishment. I sat in the courtroom with a blank stare. I was just out of it. Everyone around you is looking at you. All fingers point at you. It’s really overwhelming. Your family is there, but they are so far away.

I was sentenced to 8 to 20 years.

In prison, you don’t really talk about your case to people. The people that heard about my case felt sorry for me. That was the most surprising thing. People who heard what happened -– felt sorry for me. The refrain I got was, "What are you doing here?”

Today I seen a psychologist about my depression. It was kind of awkward for me to express my feelings to a total stranger. She was a very understanding lady and her sincerity was felt. I talked about a great many things including my feelings of guilt and remorse, my feelings of having disappointed my mother and father, my inability to forgive myself, my rage and frustration, and my inability to get along with others including staff. -– Rowe writing in his prison journal on Oct. 2, 1995.

My psychologist in prison said I had hubris because I was too proud to forgive myself for what happened. I didn’t give myself permission to forgive myself because I felt like part of what I did was unforgivable. It’s very hard to see yourself in a positive light when you have this thing staring you in the face -– when you accidentally killed someone.

I was a block tutor. I actually made friends through tutoring. The guys that I tutored were some of the toughest guys in the prison, but several couldn't read a first-grade sentence. It was humbling for them.

“Every time I talk about R.S.C. [Raenelle] it never ceases to amaze how empty and sad it leaves me. It is still as painful as it was when it first happened six years ago. … I have never really resolved what happened that Thanksgiving night 6 years ago because I still live with those demons and they haunt me every day. -– Rowe writing in his prison journal on Oct. 2, 1995.

I would take computer classes over and over again. I dabbled in a lot of things. I was trying to find a way for me to explain the phenomena of what happened to me. I read a lot of books by the Dalai Lama: The Art of Happiness, Ethics for the New Millennium, Transforming the Mind, An Open Heart.

Kingsley Rowe in prison with his visiting mother.

Socrates and Plato –- I read all that stuff in there. The things that stuck -– I read a lot of self-help books -- Awaken The Giant Within by Anthony Robbins. I read about Nelson Mandela and how he dealt with being incarcerated, Letter From Birmingham Jail by Martin Luther King Jr. l read a lot of African history books.

Today was history in the making a million man march of black men. It was beautiful to see so many black men standing strong in harmony and peace. I stayed in the whole day watching this beautiful happening. Farrakhan spoke masterfully about black unity, white supremacy, governmental hypocrisy and personal responsibility to ourselves, our women and our communities…I was definitely there in spirit -– Rowe writing in his prison journal on Oct. 16, 1995.

I was trying to find a spiritual chain to grab onto so I could understand what happened to me. In Days of Grace, Arthur Ashe said when he was winning he said he never asked, "Why me?" He never said, "Why is this happening to me?" He said when he was diagnosed with AIDS he never asked why. In his perspective, all things came through God. It really doesn’t matter why me.

I had my health. I was able to read. I was able to survive. That was something to be grateful for.

On March 28, 1999, I walked out of SCI Smithfield prison in Huntingdon, Pa. It had been 10 years. I had one change of clothes and like $100 and a chest full of books -– 300 books. I had done everything I was supposed to do as far as my self-development, even graduating with honors with an associate’s degree from Saint Francis University. I took a train right up to New York City.

Rowe on the day of his release from prison.

When I was paroled, my mother was living in Delaware. Her husband had issues with me living there. He didn’t want me to come back to the house. My mother and father had gotten together and talked and thought it would be better for me to go to New York. I lived with my father for like two months. I rented a room out and went from there.

I got out at 29. I felt like I was 20. I had to learn how to socialize in professional and social settings. I had to learn how to navigate the subway. I had to learn how to navigate the Web. My mother called me all the time to see if I was okay.

I got a job with Macy’s as a salesperson and I worked there for two years. They helped me survive. I worked in Macy’s sports. I sold athletic equipment. I preferred the stocking, because it was a more solitary job. I had time to myself. In prison, I had cellmates the whole time. You can hear your own thoughts. It’s your own space, all yours to yourself. It gave me a peace of mind. I worked at Macy’s full time and I started school. I was enrolled in New York University in September 1999.

At NYU, I never talked about it. I just went to school and did my work. I really didn’t speak too much about myself. I kept very superficial relationships. Being in prison for 10 years, I developed certain habits that were really hard to break. One thing that kept me safe inside, was staying to myself, never borrowing anything from anyone, keeping a surface relationship with people so I could protect myself. Outside, I never told people about myself, where I came from before I lived in New York City. I liked to go to the movies by myself. Friday nights, I studied. I felt like I had to catch up.

Trying to make a living, trying to meet my parole obligations, and trying to finish school -- that's the only three things I was concerned about.

I started learning with a rabbi in 2004. I converted that next year -– Sept. 28, 2005. I’m now Jewish. I used to go to a shul and it’s funny no one knew about my path. They treated me very special and very well, but at the same time they didn’t know where I came from. All of that is a part of me. I had to erase this other part. I had to be a half a person.

I went to Philadelphia in 2006. I passed by that street –- Emily Street between 7th and 6th streets. Horrifying. Super-anxious. Empty. It brought back all those feelings of being afraid, scared, of feeling helpless and not being in control of my own life. You know there are consequences coming, it’s impossible to stop those consequences coming.

I did not go on the street. I was not ready. I don’t know if I’m ready now. This stuff is lifelong.

My brother and I didn’t talk for like 10 years. I was really angry with him. I love my little brother. He was my first best friend. When the shooting happened -- that tore into our relationship. When we finally got a chance to sit down, I told him when I saw him last year: “I just want you to know that I love you and I don’t blame you at all for what happened. I should have told Mommy about the gun. You don’t have any responsibility.” He hugged me and said he felt like people thought it was his fault. I think he kind of felt responsible for our lives.

Lawmaker Unemployment Hearing Attended By Single Member of Congress At Opening

2013-04-24T14:20:48-04:00

WASHINGTON -- More than five years since the start of the Great Recession, unemployment remains a major economic problem in the United States, with long-term unemployment among its most stubborn aspects.

Nobody told Congress.

A hearing Thursday on long-term unemployment held before the 19-member Joint Economic Committee began with just a single lawmaker in attendance. Panelists testifying on the problem and its potential solutions spoke only to Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.), the committee's vice-chair, for the beginning of the roughly 90-minute session.

The all-but-complete absence of congressional interest was first documented by National Journal reporter Niraj Chokshi, who tweeted a photo of the hearing. Shortly after the photo was posted, several other lawmakers did trickle in to participate. Sen. Christopher Murphy (D-Conn.) arrived eight minutes into the hearing. Once the hearing had been under way for 35 minutes, Rep. John Delaney (D-Md.) was also in attendance, according to Chokshi. Eventually Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-Md.) also joined, bringing the crowd to four.

More than 4.6 million Americans have been jobless for at least 27 weeks, according to the latest job figures, a rate of 3.0 percent. That's higher than at any point since World War II, including the 2.6-percent peak during the recession of the early 1980s. The official unemployment rate currently stands at 7.6 percent, down from 10.0 percent at the recession's darkest moments, although much of the reduction has been due to people leaving the workforce -- simply giving up hope of finding a job.

Jobs advocates have continually chastised Congress for focusing on the federal budget deficit instead of the shortage of employment in the U.S., which still features more than four job seekers for every open position in the country.

Senators who did not attend the hearing included Sens. Robert Casey (D-Pa.), Mark Warner (D-Va.), Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), Martin Heinrich (D-N.M.), Dan Coats (R-Ind.), Mike Lee (R-Utah), Roger Wicker (R-Miss.) and Pat Toomey (R-Pa.). Reps. Kevin Brady (R-Texas), John Campbell (R-Calif.), Justin Amash (R-Mich.), Erik Paulsen (R-Minn.), Richard Hanna (R-N.Y.), Carolyn Maloney (D-N.Y.) and Loretta Sanchez (D-Calif.) also did not attend.

The Joint Economic Committee is one of only a handful of congressional panels that features members of both the House and Senate. Its hearings are thinly attended at times, but the contrast between Thursday's hearing and a March 14 hearing on "Solving The Federal Debt Crisis" is revealing. That hearing on debt opened with five members of Congress in attendance, including three Democrats and two Republicans. Over the course of the nearly two-hour session, several other members of the committee filed in.

Kevin Hassett, the author of Dow 36,000, which predicted a fantastic rise in equities before two subsequent crashes, said he wasn't surprised. "There are often moments like that at hearings. Very few are ever heavily attended. People came in late, after the picture, I suppose," he told HuffPost.

At the hearing, Klobuchar presented a study indicating that long-term unemployment is disproportionately affecting young workers, black and Hispanic workers, and workers with lower levels of education. The study is in keeping with other work that shows the economic recovery has been far better for some groups than others. The wealthiest 1 percent of households have received 106 percent of the gains since the recession bottomed out.

Dr. Harry J. Holzer, a public policy professor at Georgetown University, said by the time he testified at about 11 a.m., two senators -- Klobuchar and Murphy -- were in the room. "There were people in the audience," he said, noting that Klobuchar sounded motivated on the subject. "That can make it worth it," he added. "If one senator sponsors a bill with some of your information, that's a pretty big reward for your effort."

Holzer testified about the various hardships that the long-term unemployed faced and the differences between older unemployed citizens and younger unemployed citizens. He proposed wage insurance for people who transition from manufacturing jobs to jobs with lesser pay, having the federal government pitch in to make up the difference. Holzer said he has testified before Congress 15 times over the years, and there is always a risk of a low turnout.

Keith Hall, a senior research scholar at the libertarian-leaning Mercatus Center, is a former Bureau of Labor Statistics commissioner who testified at the hearing. "It's disappointing, I have to say," he told HuffPost about the attendance. "It is a little bit disappointing, because you'd really like to see a more engaged discussion, and it would be nice to see that both sides were there and both sides were talking."

Hall said that attendance was low probably because Congress isn't doing anything about long-term unemployment. With no bills to choose from, there's little value in becoming educated on the issue. The lack of interest may also be a consequence of the slow start to the year for the House of Representatives, which held just one markup session legislation on any topic in the first eight weeks of 2013.

"They're talking about the problem and they're looking for solutions, but there's really no hard proposal on the table," said Hall, "so while this is informative and helpful, they're not dealing with some proposal where they're close to working on something."

Congress is a long way off, Hall said. "I think it's good this is hitting their radar screen, but there's a lot of work to go to get the economy back in shape and get the long-term unemployed back in shape, and they need more than just a hearing a two," he said.

CORRECTION: A previous version of this article indicated that Sen. Klobuchar had been alone for the first half hour of the session. She was joined by Sen. Murphy after 8 minutes alone.

Attentats de Boston : les suspects décrits par leurs proches

2013-04-19T23:49:46-04:00

BOSTON - Les frères Tamerlan et Dzhokhar Tsarnaev ont été identifiés par les autorités comme les deux suspects dans les explosions du marathon de Boston. On en apprend de plus en plus sur eux grâce au net et à des entretiens avec leur famille et voisins, mais il existe peu d'éléments pouvant expliquer comment ils se sont retrouvés suspectés d'une attaque terroriste. Tamerlan a été abattu par la police dans la nuit de jeudi à vendredi, tandis que Dzhokhar a été arrêté vendredi soir.

Un enseignant a confié au Huffington Post américain qu'en 2011, peu avant de sortir diplômé du lycée Cambridge Rindge & Latin School, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev cherchait à comprendre ses origines. Brian Williams, professeur d'histoire islamique à l'Université du Massachusetts à Dartmouth, s'est rappelé que Dzhokhar l'avait contacté par mail en mai 2011 à propos de la Tchétchénie. "On aurait dit qu'il redécouvrait son identité" a raconté le professeur au HuffPost.

Dzhokhar voulait savoir d'où il venait

Williams a indiqué que Dzhokhar avait écrit un devoir sur son pays d'origine pour l'un de ses enseignants du lycée. C'est ce dernier qui avait mis en contact Dzhokhar avec Williams. Dzhokhar avait envoyé un mail à ce dernier parce qu'il enseignait un cours sur l'histoire mouvementée de la Tchétchénie, y compris les guerres récentes qui ont décimé le pays. Selon Dzhokhar, la Tchétchénie avait perdu un cinquième de sa population dans ces guerres, qui avaient débuté dans les années 1990. "Je pense que ceci constituait des traumatismes - être réfugié et fuir un pays d'origine en flammes", estime Williams.

Williams explique aussi qu'il lui a renvoyé un mail: "Je me rappelle avoir discuté de mon cours et de l'histoire de ces guerres". D'après Williams, Dzhokhar voulait simplement savoir d'où il venait.

Larry Aaronson, prof d'histoire retraité de la Cambridge Rindge & Latin School, habite trois maisons après celles des Tsarnaev sur Norfolk Street (Cambridge). Féru de photo et continuant à en faire lors des évènements de l'école, Aaronson a raconté avoir souvent photographié Dzhokhar dans l'équipe de lutte et s'être rapproché de lui après l'avoir croisé dans le quartier.

Choqué d'apprendre qu'il était suspect

Comme d'autres l'ont déclaré vendredi à la presse, il a été choqué d'apprendre qu'il était suspect. "Je ne l'ai connu que sociable, dévoué, amical, sportif, bref, un gamin super" a expliqué Aaronson. Vous n'auriez jamais deviné qu'il n'était pas né ici en parlant avec lui, il était complètement intégré et je n'avais aucune raison de suspecter quelque chose de louche. Je l'aimais beaucoup."

Aaronson a appris qu'un étudiant de Ringe pourrait être impliqué dans les attentats lorsqu'un ancien élève l'a appelé à 6 heures du matin. Peu de temps après, la police est venue frapper à sa porte et l'a fait évacuer comme tout son immeuble, le quartier étant placé en isolement. Il a vu pour la dernière fois Dzhokhar en janvier, quand il a cru que le jeune homme revenait de l'école après les vacances de noël."Il est sorti de sa maison alors que je marchais dans la rue, et il a dit : 'Salut Larry !" se rappelle Aaronson. "Nous avons parlé et je lui ai dit : 'Ecoute, la prochaine fois que tu cales sur un devoir d'histoire, appelle-moi. La prochaine fois que tu reviens, on devrait se voir".

Aaronson s'arrête alors pour reprendre son souffle : "Rien, rien, rien n'aurait pu suggérer qu'il serait impliqué dans quelque chose comme ça".

"Personne ne s'attendait à ça"

Liana Woskie a raconté au HuffPost qu'elle avait été camarade de Tamerlan à la Cambridge Rindge & Latin School et dans sa classe de terminale en 2006 : "Il faisait partie de l'équipe de volley." Et de poursuivre: "Je pense que c'est un grand choc pour la communauté de Cambridge, personne ne s'attendait à ça".

La sœur cadette de Liana Woskie était, elle, dans la classe de terminale de Dzhokhar en 2011." Le plus jeune frère agissait comme un sauveteur, c'était un sportif boursier, du genre à être conducteur désigné pour ses amis. C'était quelqu'un de dévoué" ajoute Liana Woskie. Sa soeur aînée de la jeune femme a couru lors du marathon de lundi mais s'est est sortie indemne.

"Je t'aime, pardonne moi"

Ruslan Tsarni, l'un des oncles des suspects a évoqué son choc lorsqu'il a reconnu ses neveux aux informations. Il a déclaré sur CBS Boston ne pas avoir été en contact avec eux depuis des années. "La dernière fois que j'avais entendu parler de Dzhokhar, il avait fini brillamment le lycée et commencé l'université. Quant à Tamerlan, le frère aîné... je dirais que c'était un loser. Autant que je m'en souvienne, je pensais qu'ils intègreraient la fac après avoir fini l'école. Mais j'ai entendu que lui ne l'avait pas fait. Je ne suis même pas sûr de ce qu'il faisait."

Un autre oncle, Alvi Tsarnaev, a indiqué au Journal News qu'il avait parlé avec Tamerlan mardi : "Il m'a dit : 'Je t'aime, pardonne moi'".

Rashid Haroub, 43 ans, a aussi fait part au Huff Post de son choc de voir les deux frères à la télévision vendredi matin. "C'était des gens normaux, ils allaient à l'école, des gens très gentils". Haroub a expliqué avoir vécu dans le même immeuble que les suspects jusqu'en 2010. Selon lui, ils ont emménagé avec leurs parents en 2002 ou 2003. Haroub savait que le frère aîné était boxeur, mais il a indiqué que leurs relations se limitaient à des échanges de mots dans les escaliers. La famille l'avait aidé à remplir sa voiture quand il avait déménagé en 2010 ajoute-t-il: "C'était des gens vraiment très sympas".

A l'occasion d'un photoreportage en ligne, reproduit par Slate, du photojournaliste Johannes Hirn, Tamerlan aurait déclaré à ce dernier "être très religieux", ajoutant que "les valeurs n'existaient plus" et que "les gens ne sont plus capables de se contrôler."

"Je l'appelais Rocky parce qu'il ressemblait à un Rocky russe"

Connor EpsteinKraus était en terminale avec Tamerlan. Comme bien d'autres de ses camarades, il a passé son vendredi matin à parler au téléphone avec ses vieux amis, pour tenter de remettre de l'ordre dans ses souvenirs de lui. "Je trouve ça bizarre de dire ça maintenant, mais c'était un gars assez cool et j'ai vraiment apprécié passer du temps avec lui à l'époque", a expliqué EpsteinKraus au HuffPost. Pendant la gym, ils parlaient ensemble de sports et de films."Je l'appelais Rocky parce qu'il ressemblait à un Rocky russe, et on plaisantait souvent à ce propos". "Vous pourriez penser que s'il était un russe extrémiste, il aurait pu se mettre en colère, mais il aurait ri" ajoute-t-il."Du moins, je pensais qu'il le ferait."

EpsteinKraus a déclaré qu'il était difficile d'associer ses souvenirs d'un garçon facile et amical qui ne parlait jamais de politique et n'exprimait pas d'opinions radicales, avec le boxeur des photos. "Il n'avait pas l'air d'un solitaire" renchérit l'ancien camarade. Et pourtant, EpsteinKraus ne se rappelle pas qui était très proche de Tamerlan. "J'ai essayé avec un ami de me rappeler avec qui il traînait mais on n'y est pas arrivé. Cela fait neuf ans et je n'avais pas repensé à lui durant ce temps. Cela ne vaut pas dire pour autant qu'il était du genre à ne pas appartenir à un groupe, je ne peux simplement pas dire lequel."

Quant à la tante des suspects, Maret Tsarnaev, elle a déclaré au Toronto Sun qu'elle n'avait pas vu ses neveux depuis 5 ans. Elle suppose que Tamerlan aurait abandonné l'école à la naissance de sa fille il y a deux ans.

Par ailleurs, Dzhokhar avait remporté une bourse de 2500 dollars par la ville de Cambridge en 2011, et a été nommé la même année étudiant sportif du mois à la Cambridge Rindge & Latin School.

Yearbook pic of Boston bombing suspect, given to me by fmr classmate. "He was quiet". twitter.com/Brynn4NY/statu…
— Brynn Gingras (@Brynn4NY) April 19, 2013

» Les photos de la traque dans Boston depuis jeudi (dans l'ordre chronologique) :

» Revivez les dernières évolutions de la traque du suspect dans Boston :

Tamerlan Tsarnaev Wife's Family Releases Statement of Condolence, Confirms Baby

2013-04-19T20:29:17-04:00

WASHINGTON --The family of Katherine Russell, wife of one of the suspected Boston Marathon bombers, issued a short statement Friday evening to reporters outside their North Kingstown, R.I., home. Russell was married to Tamerlan Tsarnaev, who was killed Friday morning in a shootout with police. She had a daughter with Tsarnaev a few years ago.

The family, like many who knew the terror suspects, expressed shock and horror at the events of this week. They wrote:

"Our daughter has lost her husband today, the father of her child. We cannot begin to comprehend how this horrible tragedy occurred. In the aftermath of the Patriot's Day horror, we know that we never really knew Tamerlane Tsarnaev." The FBI has given the spelling of Tsarnaev's first name as Tamerlan.

The family statement continued: "Our hearts are sickened by the knowledge of the horror he has inflicted." They asked to be left alone "in this difficult time."

The Russells ended the day with reporters knocking on their door. They began the day with police cars pulling up in front of their house.

A neighbor who lives across the street told HuffPost that she saw police cars parked in front of the Russell home early Friday morning, including a state police cruiser.

Paula Gillette, 59, said that one of the people on the scene appeared to be an FBI agent wearing a bulletproof vest. Soon after the police left, the Russell family pulled their car into their garage, Gillette said.

Another neighbor confirmed seeing law enforcement in the neighborhood. "Today there were unmarked cars over by the house and around the neighborhood," Cailyn Mather, 20, told HuffPost. "There was a police presence."

Gillette said Katherine Russell lived with her parents. She said they seemed like a close-knit family. She described them as "waspy types."

Neither of the neighbors recalled meeting Tamerlan Tsarnaev.

Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, Tamerlan Tsarnaev: Family, Acquaintances Describe Boston Bombing Suspects

2013-04-19T12:42:58-04:00

Tamerlan and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, brothers, have been identified by authorities as the two suspects in the Boston Marathon bombing. Details are emerging about them online and from interviews with family and neighbors -- but there's little to explain how they wound up as suspects in a terrorist attack.

Shortly before he graduated high school at the Cambridge Rindge & Latin School in 2011, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev had sought to understand his roots, a local professor told The Huffington Post.

Dr. Brian Williams, a professor of Islamic history at the University of Massachusetts at Dartmouth, recalled that Dzhokhar emailed him in May of 2011 asking him about Chechnya. "He was sort of rediscovering his identity," the professor told HuffPost.

Williams said that Dzhokhar had written a paper on his homeland for one of his high school teachers. The teacher connected Dzhokhar with Williams. Dzhokhar emailed Williams because the professor teaches a history class on Chechnya's troubled history, including recent wars that have decimated the country. Chechnya has lost one-fifth of its population in those wars, Dzhokhar said, which began in the early '90s. "I think that these were traumas -- being refugees and fleeing a burning homeland," Williams explained.

Williams said he sent Dzhokhar one email in return. "I seem to recall discussing my syllabus and the history of the wars," he explained. Dzhokhar, Williams said, just wanted to learn about where he came from.

Larry Aaronson, a retired history teacher at Cambridge Rindge & Latin School, lives three houses down from the Tsarnaevs on Norfolk Street. An avid photographer who still takes pictures of school events, Aaronson photographed Dzhokhar many times on the wrestling team, and became friendly with him after he saw him around the neighborhood, he said.

Like others who spoke to the press on Friday, Aaronson was shocked that Dzhokhar was named as a suspect.

"I knew him as nothing but sociable, compassionate, friendly, athletic, just a wonderful kid," Aaronson said on Friday. "You would never know by talking to him that he was not born here, he just completely blended in and I had no reason to suspect anything untoward at all. And I liked him a lot, you know?"

Aaronson first learned the news that a student at Rindge might be involved in the bombings when a former student called his phone at 6:00 a.m. Shortly after, police knocked on his door and he was told to evacuate his building, as the neighborhood went on lockdown. The last time he saw Dzhokhar was in January, when Aaronson believed he was returning to school after winter break. "He was coming out of his house and I was walking down the street and he said, 'Hi Larry,'" Aaronson recalled. "We talked and I said 'Listen, if you ever get stuck on a history paper, you should call. Next time you get back to town, we'll get together.'"

Pausing, Aaronson took a breath. "Nothing, nothing, nothing that would ever suggest he'd be involved in something like this."

Liana Woskie told HuffPost that she went to the Cambridge Rindge & Latin School with Tamerlan and was in his high school graduating class of '06. He was on the volleyball team, she said.

"I think this is a huge shock in the Cambridge community," Woskie said. "This is nothing that anyone expected."

Tamerlan died in an overnight shootout with police, but police are still searching for Dzhokhar.

Woskie's younger sister graduated with Dzhokhar in 2011, Woskie said. "The younger brother acted as a lifeguard, was a scholar athlete, would be a designated driver to his friends," Woskie said. "He was a compassionate human being."

Woskie older sister ran in the marathon on Monday but was not hurt, she said.

Ruslan Tsarni, an uncle of the suspects, said he was shocked to see his nephews on the news. He had not been in touch with them for years, he told CBS Boston.

"The latest I heard about Dzhokhar was he successfully completed his high school and went to college," Tsarni told CBS Boston on Friday. "And the older brother Tamerlan ... I would call him a loser. As much as I remember, I expected from my brother that they would just finish school, go to college. I heard he's not been in school. I'm not even sure what he's been doing."

Another uncle said he spoke to Tamerlan on Tuesday. "He said, 'I love you and forgive me,'" the uncle, Alvi Tsarnaev, told the Journal News.

Rashid Haroub, 43, told HuffPost that he recognized the brothers when he saw their pictures on TV Friday morning. He was shocked. "Unbelievable," he said. "They were normal people, they go to school, very very good person."

Haroub said he lived in the same apartment building as the suspects until 2010. They moved in with their parents in 2002 or 2003, he said. Haroub knew the older brother was a boxer, but he said their relationship was mostly confined to friendly stairwell conversations when he came and went from work. The family helped him pack his car when he moved out in 2010, Haroub added.

"They were really nice, nice guys," Haroub said.

Tamerlan was reportedly born in Russia. He was 26 when he died. He appears to be profiled in a photo essay online by photojournalist Johannes Hirn, called "Will Box For Passport." The photo essay has since been removed and is not available online.

In one of the captions in the photo essay reprinted by Slate, the man who appears to be Tamerlan is quoted as saying, "I don't have a single American friend, I don't understand them."

The man also described himself to Hirn as "very religious," according to the Slate reprinting of the photo caption, adding he's worried that "there are no values anymore" and "people can't control themselves."

Connor EpsteinKraus took gym with Tamerlan their senior year of high school. Like many other alumni, EpsteinKraus spent Friday calling old friends, trying to piece together what he could remember about his old classmate.

"I feel really weird saying this now, but he was a pretty cool guy, and I genuinely enjoyed spending time with him in that class," EpsteinKraus told HuffPost. During gym, the two would joke about sports and movies, and shadow box together. "I actually called him Rocky, because he looked a bit like a Russian Rocky, and we would joke around about that."

"You'd think if he was a Russian extremist, he'd get mad maybe, but he would laugh," EpsteinKraus added. "At least I thought he did."

EpsteinKraus said it was hard to match his memories of an easygoing, friendly guy, who never talked about politics or expressed radical views, with the boxer in the photograph.

"He didn't stand out as someone who was a loner," EpsteinKraus said. Still, he couldn't remember who had been close friends with Tamerlan, either. "A friend and I were trying to figure out, who did he really hang out with? But I can't say. It's been nine years, and I haven't thought about him in that time. Still, I don't think it was the kind of thing where he didn't have a social group, I just can't place it specifically."

The suspects' aunt, Maret Tsarnaev, told the Toronto Sun that she hadn't seen her nephews for five years. She speculated that Tamerlan may have dropped out of school when his daughter was born, two years ago.

This YouTube account appears to belong to Tamerlan, and is being widely reported as his. It was created under the name muazseyfullah. As of January, according to a Google cache image, Tamerlan's name was not yet on it -- which casts some doubt as to whether it was his. The user subscribes to and likes various Islamic YouTube channels and videos.

The user also created four playlists on the site. One of the playlists is called "Terrorists." It includes two videos, both of which have been removed. Another playlist under the account includes three trance videos. A third is labeled "Islam." The "Terrorists" list was created five months ago, and the "Islam" clips were put together six months ago.

This being YouTube, the user's "favorite videos" playlist includes an iguana wearing sunglasses.

Yearbook pic of Boston bombing suspect, given to me by fmr classmate. "He was quiet". twitter.com/Brynn4NY/statu…
— Brynn Gingras (@Brynn4NY) April 19, 2013

Dzhokhar, or someone with the same name, won a $2500 scholarship from the city of Cambridge in 2011, and was named student athlete of the month at Cambridge Rindge & Latin School in 2011.

Additional reporting by Ryan Grim.

Boston Marathon Bombing Causes Injuries To 3 Family Members

2013-04-18T01:44:33-04:00

BOSTON -- Kevin White walked out of Boston Medical Center Wednesday night with a hole in the middle of his left forearm roughly the size of a nickel, sealed with dark clotted blood.

"A piece of metal was embedded there," White explained, sitting at a picnic table outside the hospital after he'd been discharged. The hair on the back of his head had been singed by explosives, leaving it shorter than on the sides. "That was fire and smoke," he said.

These were among the more superficial injuries White sustained Monday, standing six feet from one of the homemade bombs that tore apart the finish line of the Boston Marathon. White, 35, suffered a concussion from the blast, along with a ruptured left eardrum, and hairline fractures in some of his bones.

As Andrew White, Kevin's only brother, checked him out of the hospital, their mother, Mary Jo White, 65, remained behind. The shrapnel tore through her left arm, shattering the bones in her wrist and forearm.

Across town, Andrew and Kevin's father, Bill White, 71, lay in the intensive care unit at Massachusetts General Hospital, where surgeons on Monday amputated his right leg above the knee. The limb was mangled beyond repair by the same deadly bomb shrapnel that claimed three lives and forever changed hundreds more.

"It's crazy, and it's really scary," said Andrew White, 38. "Right now I'm just trying to manage everything for my family and hold it all together."

Kevin White, a private equity adviser who was visiting Boston exploring career options, said caring for his parents -- at least in the near term -- will be his first priority.

Yet even as the two brothers prepared to make major life adjustments, they refused to focus on the negatives. "I could hate [what happened] and be angry about it and think these things shouldn't happen," said Andrew, a clinical psychologist in Portland, Ore. "But that's not going to make my dad have a leg."

"This happened, and there's no one thing that's to blame," Kevin White added. "A series of small events led to other ones, and it's really awful. But this is where we are."

Like so many of the victims of Monday's attack, no member of the White family was running in the marathon. "We were there because it was a beautiful day, a holiday, and we figured we'd just check out the race and maybe go on to the ball game," Kevin White recalled.

Just before 3 p.m., Kevin White said he heard the loudest boom he ever imagined. "The sound coursed through my whole body, and then there was a giant flash of white light, before everything went dark," he said. When he landed on the asphalt a few feet away, White said he instinctively got up, numb with adrenaline and fear. "I eventually made my way to the medical tent, but there was so much chaos and smoke everywhere that I didn't know where my parents were," he said.

With blood dripping from his face and arms, volunteers quickly steered him to an ambulance. "The ride to the hospital was really intense," he recalled. "There was a woman next to me weeping, and she asked me to hug her." In addition to his internal injuries, Kevin White had a three-inch piece of shrapnel in his forearm. He comforted the stranger all the way to Faulkner Hospital.

"While I was in the ambulance, I sent text messages to friends of mine, because cell phones weren't working, asking them to reach my brother." Within minutes, a colleague of Andrew White's interrupted him. "I was on the next flight out," Andrew said.

On Wednesday night, the brothers headed to Mass General, where Kevin White saw his father for the first time since the blast. "I didn't really know what to expect when I got there, but it was so different from my mom, who is in a painful but mobile stage. My father was in a more severe stage."

Bill White, a decorated Vietnam War veteran and semi-retired mergers and acquisitions consultant, spent decades coaching his sons' soccer teams. His condition was hard for his sons to process. "It was really tough, because I talked to my dad on the phone today," Kevin White said after the visit. "But when I saw him, he was [sedated], and his condition was really serious."

Bill and Mary Jo White (pictured above) have health insurance -- a serious concern as both parents undergo multiple surgeries. To help cover the expenses that insurance doesn't, former classmates of Andrew and Kevin White at Lawrence Academy, a private high school in Groton, Mass., organized an online fundraising drive. Since the fund's launch on Tuesday afternoon, they've raised more than $16,500 from school alumni, friends and strangers who reached out to help. Kevin White encouraged anyone who wants to help bombing victims to donate to The One Fund , an official victims fund established by Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick and Boston Mayor Tom Menino.

Benjamin Coutu, an organizer of the family fund, met Andrew White during their sophomore year in high school. "We both played guitar," he said. "We formed a band -- the Purple Sheep." He still considers Andrew White one of his closest friends.

When he learned of the explosions Monday, Coutu turned on his television and watched the endless loops of graphic video showing the injured being carted away. He noticed a man in a wheelchair who looked a lot like Kevin White. He had a laceration on his face, a blood stain on one of his hands, and a rip in one of his pant legs. "He had a look of complete shock," Coutu recalled.

Coutu soon took out his camera and snapped images of Kevin White on his television. He cropped the photos and texted them to Andrew White, who confirmed that was indeed his brother.

Katy Chapdelaine Coburn got an email from a classmate explaining what had happened to Kevin White and his parents. Coburn, who graduated in the class of 1992 with Andrew White, set up the fundraising website with Coutu. "I just felt like I needed to act," she said. "It was horrible. I knew that this guy's family was in the hospital. The pictures were so grisly and so powerful. This was right in my neighborhood."

Coburn said the fundraising has gone viral. "People want to do something," she said. "They feel powerless."

But powerless is not how the White family feels.

"There are many, many people who've suffered far more than we have the past three days," Kevin White said as he and his brother drove home from visiting their father.

"Whatever the motive of whomever put this plan in motion, at this point it doesn't matter," Andrew White said. "We're coping with what's going on now and we're moving forward."

Krystle Campbell, Boston Marathon Bomb Victim, Hailed As Loving, Loyal

2013-04-16T20:55:09-04:00

WASHINGTON -- Krystle Campbell, 29, was the second person killed in Monday's Boston Marathon bombing to be identified. Campbell had gone to Copley Square to watch the race finish. She was standing along Boylston Street when the bombs went off, killing her and injuring a friend.

Patty Campbell, Krystle's mother, read a tearful statement on Tuesday afternoon, standing in front of her house in Medford, Mass. "Krystle Marie, she was a wonderful person," Patty Campbell said. "Everybody that knew her loved her. She loved her dogs. ... She had a heart of gold. She was always smiling. You couldn't ask for a better daughter. I can't believe this has happened. She was such a hard worker at everything she did. This doesn't make any sense."

More than 170 were wounded in the attack, some still in critical condition. Along with Campbell, 8-year-old Martin Richard and a Boston University graduate student whose name has not been made public died in the blasts.

For the Campbells, the heartbreak began with confusion in the hospital. According to WCVB, doctors told the family that their daughter had survived and that her friend had died. "When William and Patty Campbell were finally allowed in to see the patient, they realized it was not their daughter," the station reported.

Krystle Campbell worked in the restaurant industry and was dedicated to her family. She had moved into her grandmother's Somerville, Mass., home to help her recuperate from surgery. She took care of her grandmother for roughly two years. She meant "the world," Lillian Campbell told The Huffington Post.

"She was right there for me," she said. "I needed her and she was there. She was a giving girl, a loving girl. And I loved her. She was my special little one."

Friends and co-workers remembered Campbell as someone who was dedicated to her job, who always greeted them with a bright smile. Steve Sullivan used to see her when he took pictures for celebrity chef events at the restaurant Jasper White's Summer Shack . Campbell worked there as a manager, Sullivan said. She had worked for the restaurant chain for nine years.

"She was awesome," Sullivan told HuffPost. "Always the girl with the smile on her face on a Tuesday night with a foot of snow on the ground."

Sullivan said she'd "be the first one to come over and give you a hug. She was an angel. I'll tell ya -- we're devastated." He remembered Campbell posting pictures on Facebook of buying tuna off the dock, declaring, "I love my job."

Jasper White, in a statement to the press, said he closed his Boston and Cambridge locations on Tuesday night out of respect. He hailed Campbell as "a vibrant, wonderful, cheerful part of the Summer Shack family."

"She was an integral part of our organization, particularly in running our Boston Harbor Island location," White said. "Krystle touched my life, and the lives of all our employees with her constant smile and joyful personality. She was beloved by all of us, and we will miss her deeply. We also extend our heartfelt sympathy and send our prayers out to her family."

Campbell recently started working as a manager at Jimmy's Steer House in Arlington, Mass. A manager, who did not give her name, said she had gone through training with Campbell. "She was a very amazing person," the manager told HuffPost. "All the staff loved her."

Campbell would have turned 30 next month.

Juliette Kayyem, Ex-Massachusetts Security Adviser, Says Marathon Finish A Vulnerable Spot

2013-04-15T19:46:03-04:00

WASHINGTON -- Juliette Kayyem, the former homeland security adviser to Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick who helped coordinate Boston Marathon security in years past, said the finish line was always a vulnerable spot for a terrorist attack.

"The finish line is a very chaotic," Kayyem, who held the post from January 2007 to March 2009, said in a telephone interview with The Huffington Post. She said there are many people and groups crowding the space -- runners, public health volunteers, family members, a medical unit, police officers. "You just have a lot of activity going on."

"The area is going to be pretty porous," Kayyem added.

Two explosions rocked the finish line on Monday, killing at least two people and injuring more than 100.

Kayyem said there was never a serious terrorist threat to the Boston Marathon "that I remember" when she held the homeland security post. Kayyem said her biggest concern during her years was simply the health of the runners. "It was tended to be viewed as a public health event," she explained. "For the most part, this is 30,000 runners not feeling great at the end."

David Monti, editor and publisher of Race Results Weekly, told The New York Times that “finisher density was high” when the explosives went off. “Most race organizers have security plans in place, but let’s face it, marathons are no different than other street celebrations like parades," he said.

Gun Violence And 1 Teenager's Death: 48 Shots Documented In Crime Scene Photos (GRAPHIC)

2013-04-15T14:08:21-04:00

WASHINGTON -- The shell casings were discovered on the Haven Avenue overpass for Interstate-210 West heading toward Los Angeles. It was dark, but the cops had no trouble finding the brushed aluminum-colored 9 mm husks. Police drew uneven moats of blue or white chalk around the casings and marked each one with a tiny yellow evidence cone. Each cone had a number. There were 48 casings.

The crime scene photos, taken at a distance, show the pinky-sized casings lying zig-zagged in clusters, spreading from the left turning lane, across the double-yellow lines and through one lane and into another. From above, they resemble a school of fish.

The casings served as evidence in the Jan. 18, 2004 murders of Chris Heyman, 17, and Blake Harris, 18, who were shot in the backseat of a tan Mustang in Rancho Cucamonga, Calif. In their last moments, Heyman and Harris talked on their cellphones to friends before they put them down and the driver went to turn the stereo back on. When they reached the overpass, a shooter emptied a modified AP-9 fully-automatic submachine gun in a rapid burst into the Mustang. The gun could fire over 30 rounds per second.

The gunman and his accomplice, out searching for methamphetamine, thought the Mustang had cut them off. During the trial, the accused would admit that he wasn't even sure the tan car was the right one. They exchanged no words with the kids in the Mustang; they were strangers.

The Mustang driver, Michael Universal, who was about a year older than his friends, survived unharmed. With his cellphone out of juice, he had to take one off of one of his friends before he could call for help. "Something happened," he told the 911 dispatcher, according to a transcript. "My back window is shattered." His friends were bleeding from the head, he said. One had "a big lump in his head," and the other was "fucking down," he said. "My best friends," he said. The dispatcher asked if they had been involved in a shooting. Universal wasn't sure.

"You didn't hear a gunshot though?" the dispatcher asked. "I don't know," Universal said. "I was just driving." It happened so fast.

The close-up crime scene pictures show most of the shell casings pinched at the ends, like the plastic tips of cheap convenience-store cigars. The only difference is the number on their evidence markers. Numbers 37 and 40 show blackened gunpowder scars. Numbers 34 and 43 are bullet fragments, jagged-sharp and red tinted.

Note: The images below are graphic and may be disturbing to some readers.

One photo shows a bullet, with a note that says it was taken from the right side of "v/head." It's black as rough coal and almost as big as a plum pit. Bert Heyman, Chris Heyman's dad, had been told that the bullet was pulled from behind his son's right ear.

Just over nine years later, in late February, The Huffington Post interviewed Bert Heyman's wife, Jenny Heyman, for a story on gun violence and trauma. Jenny was heartbreakingly open, sharing her ongoing grief as well as her most cherished memories of her son. But Bert went mute when asked about Chris' death; he would only communicate through email. As he reflected on our email interviews, and the national debate over gun legislation, he said he began thinking of the crime scene, pondering whether to publicize these ghastly police photos of his son's murder.

Heyman had read documentary filmmaker Michael Moore's essay, "America, You Must Not Look Away (How to Finish Off the NRA)." The director of "Bowling for Columbine" argued that the families of the children killed in Newtown, Conn. should release the photos from the crime scene at Sandy Hook Elementary School. Show the American public what an AR-15 does to 6-year-old bodies and the National Rifle Association's reign would be over, Moore argued.

Moore referenced Emmett Till, the 14-year-old African-American boy savagely disfigured and murdered for allegedly flirting with a white woman in Mississippi, and the open casket at his funeral, as helping to draw support to the civil rights movement. He also referenced the photographs from the My Lai massacre as instrumental in turning the country against the Vietnam War.

"I just wanted the world to see," Moore quotes Till's mother as saying at the time of her son's death. "I just wanted the world to see."

Heyman said he admired Till's mother's bravery and found Moore's essay persuasive. "What he says is true to me," Heyman explained. "It spoke to me."

After reading Moore's piece, Heyman went about tracking down Kent Williams, the deputy district attorney who prosecuted his son's killer. "With the Sandyhook massacre and the Gun Regulation issues before us again, we thought it might be a good time to come out of our shell," Heyman wrote Williams in an email.

Heyman had a lot of respect for Williams and the way he kept him informed about every new development in his son's murder case. Williams had kept his promises and won a conviction. To Williams, Chris Heyman's murder stood out, even among the countless gun-violence deaths in California, and the country, each year. California's 4th District Court of Appeal described the killings as "unusually nasty murders."

Even now, when The Huffington Post reached the prosecutor on the phone, Williams circled back to the gun and its prominence in the killer's mind. "There's something about holding a gun that can empty a 50-round clip in seconds," Williams said. "It's like having your finger on a nuclear bomb ... You got the power. You want to use it."

The photos, and the idea of making them public, stirred Heyman into advocacy. Mourning turned into a mission.

"People live not so much in a bubble, but if it's not happening to them they don't really see it or feel it," Heyman said. "People need to see this kind of stuff. They need to feel it."

Heyman's evolution has mirrored much of the country's on gun control. After a string of mass shootings from guns in recent years, many victims and victims' families can no longer sit still as passive grievers. Former Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-Ariz.) and her husband, Mark Kelly, formed a political action committee in January aimed at reforming gun laws. The families of Newtown victims have begun actively lobbying Congress. Recently, President Barack Obama gave over his weekly radio address to Francine Wheeler, whose 6-year-old son Ben was killed in Sandy Hook Elementary School. Wheeler didn't just share her grief but updated the country on the Newtown families' lobbying push.

That lobbying took a huge setback last week, when the Senate failed to pass a bipartisan measure that would have expanded background checks and voted down bans on high capacity gun magazines and assault weapons. From the Senate gallery, Patricia Maisch, one of the heroes of the mass shooting in Tucson, shouted, “Shame on you.”

It was legislation that may have prevented deaths like Chris Heyman's. Bert Heyman isn't a politician, nor is he part of a group of families embraced by the rituals of national mourning. He can't get within shouting distance of politicians. He works the swing shift seven days a week at the Miller Brewing Co. plant in Irwindale, Calif. But he said he could feel himself begin to change after HuffPost contacted him in February, and in his subsequent talk with the prosecutor. Heyman had realized he is still very much weighed down by his loss. "We sort of put ourselves in a hole," he said. "To me that was part of my depression, part of me that is scared shitless to stand up in front of people and talk about this kind of stuff. Talking to you just opened that door."

"I really had to re-examine where I was personally," Heyman said. "What's going to help me get out of this rut?"

In the weeks leading up to the murders, the killer had used the gun on another car. Williams believed that the killer had a name for the machine gun. He called it "his Bitch." The gunman had saved the articles about the shooting and the teenagers' deaths. The gunman "wasn't sad about it or anything," a former friend of the shooter testified at the murder trial. "He was pretty much bragging about it."

The jury and the people watching the trial got to see the crime scene pictures. Williams thought the rest of America should see what the "Bitch" could do. He arranged for the photos to be retrieved from storage. It would take several days to find the boxes of 4-by-6 inch prints.

In her book-length rumination on depictions of violence and cruelty in photography, Regarding the Pain of Others, Susan Sontag seemed to settle on the simple idea that citizenship requires that we do not look away. To ignore these violent images is to refuse to be an adult in this world.

It seems a good in itself to acknowledge, to have enlarged, one's sense of how much suffering caused by human wickedness there is in the world we share with others. Someone who is perennially surprised that depravity exists, who continues to feel disillusioned (even incredulous) when confronted with evidence of what humans are capable of inflicting in the way of gruesome, hands-on cruelties upon other humans, has not reached moral or psychological adulthood. No one after a certain age has the right to this kind of innocence, of superficiality, to this degree of ignorance, or amnesia. ... Let the atrocious images haunt us.

Moore, in an interview with The Huffington Post, referenced the Iraq War and President George W. Bush's refusal to allow images of flag-draped coffins coming off military planes as a heinous act of cowardice. Such censorship enables emotional distance, Moore said. "We don't have to take responsibility [for our actions]," Moore said. "We don't have to pay for them … It disconnects us from the rest of the world."

Nearby villagers see the horrors of a drone strike. We have to search images on Google to see the bloody, dusty aftermath. Gun violence in the U.S. gets reduced to a series of crime briefs -- if it's covered at all. "I think we're doing ourselves great personal and societal harm by turning away, by turning our heads away," Moore said.

He noted that Newtown families are not outraged by what he wrote in the essay Heyman read. Some, Moore said, have contacted him and have been encouraging, but he wouldn't reveal more about their conversations.

If Newtown photos come to light, Moore insisted it would have to be with the parents' consent. "I know it would be very difficult because you would want your child to be remembered as a sweet, beautiful child," he said. "But it begs the question of do people really get that Adam Lanza only needed one shot to the heads of these kids to kill them and then … fired up to another 10 shots in each of them, riddling their bodies with these high-powered bullets from an assault rifle at close range?"

Moore wondered how many Newtown parents could only identify their children by the clothes that they were wearing that day.

For Heyman, the public doesn't have to know all that Chris was. But they have to know the impact that these weapons can have on a body. It isn't just about his son in those pictures. "It could be anybody," he said.

After the shooting, Michael Universal sped off in the Mustang with his two friends fatally wounded in the backseat. He took refuge in a nearby McDonald's parking lot. The photos show that he pulled in to a spot facing the fast-food chain's bright enclosed playground for children. The entire area would soon be cordoned off with yellow police tape.

Some cops are shown standing around. Others sit inside a police van.

On the ground a few feet from Chris Heyman's body and the Mustang, there is a torn seat belt purple with blood. Nearby, there is a Burger King soda cup. It was photographed and marked. Next to the back wheel is Chris Heyman's friend's black track clothes and black sneakers, still laced all the way to the top. Where there is white, you can see blood spray.

A passenger side door is open, revealing a foot and then an ankle. A bloody hand hangs to the side, Chris' bloody hand. He is still in his seat, his torso and head are slumped over out of view. The eye is drawn to Chris' knee, tagged with evidence marker No. 2. His body is now evidence: Not something to love, but something to work.

"That's my boy," Heyman recalled thinking. He had come to pick up the pictures from Williams, but the prosecutor wanted to review the photos with him first. They sat in a conference room, with Williams placing the photos on the table. "That's my boy laying there." He said he felt his own body drain of energy.

The mortuary had been willing to have an open casket. But Jenny Heyman didn't want to see her son that way. Instead, Bert Heyman had a small private viewing at "a real old creepy church" the night before the funeral.

"We had to put a hat over his head," the father recalled. "You could see his face." He stopped for a moment and began to sob. "Sorry, man," he said. "There were just pieces of his head missing."

Jenny Heyman told me she has not seen the photos and had no plans to do so. At the trial, as evidence of Chris Heyman's wounds was being presented, she walked out of the courtroom. When she has thought about her son's murder, she said, the effect is physical. "I can feel the bullets hitting me," she said. "I can actually feel the bullets hitting me."

"You have to understand, I'm the mom," she said. "I'm supposed to be there to protect him that night and I couldn't do that."

After much thought, Jenny Heyman decided to support her husband and allow the photos to be released. Bert told her he felt like this is the last way they can honor Chris. "I think it's the right decision to do this. It's just taken me a little longer to understand it. It just hurts," she said.

It's up to us to look.

In one photo, a crime scene technician wearing protective purple surgical gloves takes Chris' wallet from his body and photographs his California driver's license, which reads provisional until age 18. The license lists his hair as black and his eyes as brown. He weighed 147 pounds. He was an athletic kid at home on a soccer field and was taking lessons to pilot an airplane. Staring out from his driver's license photo, his smile looks blissful.

Inside the car, that life is gone. The submachine gun's bullets made parts of his head disappear. Blood spills into a towel and smears across his forehead and into his eyes. The blood sticks over his eyes and across the bridge of his nose like a mask. Chris is still wearing his seatbelt.

His right temple is a purple-metallic color. Blood is trailing from his ear. On his neck above his collar bone, there's a quarter-size bullet wound on his neck. Blood streaks from the hole across his neck. Chris' mouth is slightly open. His eyes are closed. His face is gray and slack.

Bert Heyman stopped at these pictures and couldn't look any more.

"I'm living it," he said. "I don't need to see the pictures."

Throughout the debate, Republicans have engaged warily with victims of gun violence, by turns expressing sympathy and dismissing them as "props" sent out to exploit the emotions of lawmakers. On Wednesday, after the critical amendments failed, Obama reacted angrily to the treatment of the victims. "Do we really think that thousands of families whose lives have been shattered by gun violence don't have a right to weigh in on this issue?" Obama said. "Do we think their emotions, their loss is not relevant to this debate?"

A couple of days before the Senate defeats, Heyman began to sense that whatever he was doing to publicize his son's tragic death would be futile. He emailed a 700-word essay he wrote called "Parent to Parent Plea" which calls for gun regulation -- anything that might prevent a tragedy like the one he endured. Out of his bottomless grief now came this endless energy, he says, that inspired these words.

"We have an opportunity to change our mindset," Bert concluded. "We can be proactive and plan ahead, when you see that we average upwards of 30,000 gun related deaths here in the United States of America every year. It's time for us to pull together as in 'We the People' and think about next year's 30,000 gun deaths and do something positive to try and break that trend … Think of the Victims Families that are left behind, to grieve, to struggle, to wonder ..."

I asked Bert why he wrote it.

"Maybe the pictures aren't enough," he said.

Margaret Thatcher Receives Critical Eulogy From South Africa

2013-04-08T17:59:05-04:00

WASHINGTON -- Margaret Thatcher's death on Monday at 87 has brought tributes from all over the world.

All over the world, that is, except for South Africa. Going against overwhelming mainstream sentiment, Thatcher refused to impose sanctions on South Africa's apartheid regime and went so far as to describe the African National Congress in 1987 as terrorists. "Anyone who thinks it is going to run the government in South Africa is living in cloud-cuckoo land," she said of the ANC at the time.

The ANC might have ground its teeth raw producing its statement on her death. "Her passing signals the end of a generation of leaders that ruled during a very difficult period characterised by the dynamics of the Cold War," said ANC spokesman Jackson Mthembu. "She was one of the strong leaders in Britain and Europe, to an extent that some of her policies dominate discourse in the public service structures of the world."

By invoking "public service structures," Mthembu is referring to Thatcher's relentless and largely successful push to privatize transportation, pensions and other government-controlled elements -- policies the ANC opposed in general.

Pallo Jordan, a once-exiled ANC leader, was more direct. He told the Guardian: "Good riddance."

"I've just sent a letter of congratulations," Jordan said. "I say good riddance. She was a staunch supporter of the apartheid regime. She was part of the right wing alliance with Ronald Reagan that led to a lot of avoidable deaths."

The last South African president under apartheid, F.W. de Klerk, praised Thatcher for siding with his regime. De Klerk's government, like Thatcher's, eventually bowed to the inevitable and backed away from South Africa's racial segregation policy. De Klerk took pains in his statement to posthumously crown Thatcher a "steadfast critic" of apartheid."

"Although she was always a steadfast critic of apartheid, she had a much better grasp of the complexities and geo-strategic realities of South Africa than many of her contemporaries," de Klerk said in a statement. "She consistently, and correctly, believed that much more could be achieved through constructive engagement with the South African government than through draconian sanctions and isolation."

He concluded his statement by saying "I am honoured to have had Margaret Thatcher as a friend."

CLARIFICATION: Thatcher has often been credited with the quote that "anyone who thinks it is going to run the government in South Africa is living in cloud-cuckoo land." The quote also has been attributed to one of her spokesman. The quote was the inspiration for the title of the 1997 book Last Days In Cloud Cuckooland: Dispatches From White Africa. Notes upon the book's release credit Thatcher with the quote.

One Nation Under The Gun: Thousands Of Gun Deaths Since Newtown

2013-03-22T18:38:35-04:00

One Month

On the morning of his murder, Feb. 11, Devin Aryal, 9, dressed to the ticking of his race car clock. His collection of stuffed animals, won from those arcade claw games, stared back at him from their perch on his top bunk.

Devin felt he had outgrown the cutesy animal prints that had adorned the walls of his Oakdale, Minn., bedroom. He was in fourth grade now, after all. Without telling anyone, he had yanked the prints off his walls one by one. He had yet to decide how to fill up the blank spaces.

The night before, Devin had watched the Disney channel and played with his pirate gear and a couple of toy dinosaurs on his mother’s bed. He snuggled with her on the couch and watched more television. This had become their sleepy ritual. He’d explain the plot of the television show they were watching, or recount the highlights of his day -- a winning soccer goal, a new level beaten on one of his Nintendo DSi games.

"The morning was usual," recalled Melissa Aryal, Devin’s mother. "We got up and we got ready. I dropped him off at day care at 7:45."

On the seven-minute ride in their minivan, Aryal, 39, kept the radio off so she could talk with Devin. "He had so much to say," she recalled. Their morning conversation always ended the same.

"I love you,” Aryal told her son.

“I love you more," he replied.

“He would always win that game,” Aryal said. “It always gave me a good feeling.”

The Huffington Post has tracked gun-related deaths in the United States since Newtown. Click here for an interactive map of those who have died.

After a 34-year-old stranger with a 9 mm pistol and a backpack full of bullets shot Devin in the head for no apparent reason, Aryal only hears her son in her dreams. She is wrecked by the world she wakes up to, a world without Devin. He has become, for her, a composite of memories, conversation and images.

In the first week after the Newtown, Conn., massacre on Dec. 14, more than 100 people in the U.S. were killed by guns. In the first seven weeks, that number had risen to at least 1,285 gunshot killings and accidental deaths. A little more than three months after Newtown, there have been 2,244. The Huffington Post has recorded every gun-involved murder and accidental shooting death reported in U.S. news media since Newtown, revealing an epidemic that shows no signs of abating. The horrors cannot be contained behind yellow police tape or find resolution in a courtroom. For the victim's families, the grief deforms all it touches. There's the fear that the radio will play her favorite ballad. An airplane overhead, like the kind he flew, will strike panic. Home is not safe. One month, two months, two years, nine years since those fatal shots -- the grief never leaves.

Mere days into her own grieving, Aryal’s mind is dark, except for memories of her son and his last day. They were close as can be. But no matter how hard she tries, she can‘t remember what Devin wore that day or what Devin talked about that morning. “I hate to say this," she said. "Nothing stands out. How did I know this was going to be our last morning?”

Aryal rushed to her cashier job at a hardware store after she left Devin at the day care. She had to be there by 8. Her daughter, 19, slept through the morning and missed saying goodbye to Devin.

Devin greeted Pam Reilly, who runs the center in her toy-filled basement. Reilly's day care, across the street from Devin's elementary school, had been an early-morning fixture for dozens of kids for decades. It had been Devin’s second home for 5 1/2 years. Reilly was family.

That Sunday, the night before, had been Reilly’s birthday. Devin wanted to know if she had listened to the celebratory voicemail he and his mother had left for her. Then he wanted to talk to her about video games. “He had beaten this level on this game on my birthday,” Reilly recalled. “He thought that was pretty cool.” Aryal would later put that game in his coffin next to his body.

At about 8 a.m., Devin and the eight other children took seats at long black folding tables, surrounded by tall shelves stuffed with books and toys, and ate breakfast. Reilly served chocolate donuts, apple juice and Lucky Charms.

Devin had become the day care’s comforter-in-chief, an expert hand-holder and sharer. When a girl with cerebral palsy had trouble playing tag, he’d run a little slower so she could tag him. When his best friend Aaron got sad about his parents' divorce, Devin was there to counsel him about the extra presents he would soon get on Christmas. He assured Aaron he’d be okay. Devin had gone through it too.

“Devin was extremely anti-bullying,” said Amy Berger, 38, whose son was close to Devin at the day care. “If he saw anyone being bullied, he would be their friend instantly -- in school, day care, it didn’t matter. No one can pick on anyone. He wouldn’t allow it.” In a card left at the church, a classmate wrote of Devin: “He played with me when I was lonely.”

Just before 8:30 a.m., Devin walked across to Oakdale Elementary with Aaron and Aaron’s little sister Emily. Emily had difficulty walking. Devin held her hand.

At an extra gym period, Devin practiced jumping rope for a heart association fundraiser. He returned to Reilly’s basement at about 3:20 p.m., where he stayed until his mother would pick him up after her work. He quietly completed his homework. Forty minutes later, Reilly passed out Rice Krispies bars.

SpongeBob came on the day care television at 4:30 on channel 54. Devin had a choice between a black futon couch and an older brown couch. He played his DSi game system with Aaron. When Aaron left, Devin played with Berger’s son, Nathan.

By 5:30, most kids had left.

Upstairs, Reilly brewed a pot of Folgers regular. She had formed a little coffee club with a few of the mothers, mostly single parents. Camaraderie came easy. As the years went on, Reilly become something of an activity organizer for the grownups, arranging outings to a casino just south of Hastings, games of Yahtzee in her kitchen, horror movie nights in front of the TV in the living room. On nights when "The Bachelor" aired, she'd order pizza and the other mothers would come over and watch.

That night was “Bachelor” night.

Aryal wasn’t sure she could make it. She talked about maybe dropping Devin at her parents’ house. She wasn’t sure.

Devin knew what he wanted. He had decided that his hair was too long and told his mother he wanted a haircut. He could twirl his cowlick. That meant it was time for a trim.

Aryal thought the haircut could wait. It was their last squabble. Devin still wanted to go to the barbershop, Reilly remembered.

“Yes we are!” Devin said.

“I don’t think so,” Aryal said.

“Yes we are!” Devin said.

“I think we’re gonna wait,” Aryal said. “We’ll talk about it in the car.”

Devin put his hood up, grabbed his dark green backpack, and said his goodbyes. As he walked out, Reilly and a day care worker yelled after him: “Zip up your coat! It’s cold out!” Their last words.

He got into the back seat of their forest green 2004 Nissan Quest minivan. Aryal pulled onto 7th Street and began the same drive she had taken for 5 1/2 years. She was thinking it was too cold to go back to Reilly’s house for “The Bachelor.” She just wanted to go home and snuggle with Devin in front of the TV.

Devin talked about the double-digit multiplication homework that he had finished. He kept on about the haircut. His mom assured him she’d take him soon.

Aryal thought she heard a noise coming from under the minivan’s hood. She did not see the man in the green jacket and black jeans firing round after round into the street with a 9 mm handgun.

As Aryal turned left onto Hadley Avenue, her right arm suddenly went numb. Blood spurted.

She pulled into the Rainbow Foods parking lot, jumped from the minivan and dialed 911 on her cellphone. As she was calling, she turned and looked back. The minivan back window was shattered. The emergency dispatch operator came on the phone. Aryal's eyes found Devin in the back seat. “I just dropped the phone and I ran to him screaming,” she said.

She found her son slumped over in his seat, unconscious. He was making long, deep breathing sounds, and was bleeding from his head. “I’d seen the exit wound on the top of his head when I was holding him,” Aryal remembered.

She held her son’s head in her arms. “I love you. Just hold on. I love you. Just hold on. Mommy’s here.”

Aryal held on to her son until the ambulance took him to the hospital. He died within the hour. She learned the news while she was being treated for her bullet wound.

Two days after the funeral, she said she couldn't think. "I'm numb and just full of grief," she said. "I loved being a mom."

Fifteen days after Devin's death, she obsessed about her son’s last moments. She stays up every night unable to sleep until five or six in the morning. Her brain can’t stop flipping back to that night. “Seeing how bloody he was,” she explained. “It’s a gunshot.”

The immediate aftermath of violent death is red tape. Vast bureaucracies must be notified. Forms need filling out. Insurance must be contacted. The school must be told. The police must ask questions.

The police came to the house and handed over what was left inside the minivan: Devin's backpack, a laptop, papers, Devin’s rainbow-colored mittens and scarf, a case of pop, folding chairs they carried to his soccer games, and HappyMeal toys -- so much of it now freckled with blood. That same day in February, an official from the school district dropped off Devin’s belongings from his desk: a reading folder, a math folder, a box of Valentine’s Day cards the kids had sent to Devin. Aryal rooted through his backpack and found his completed math homework and handed it over to the school official, not wanting to rob Devin of his final achievement.

Nhan Lap Tran was arrested near the crime scene and charged with murder. Aryal tried not to read the newspaper stories. But she couldn't help herself. It didn't matter that she'd end up in tears. She needed to know why. According to the criminal complaint filed in Washington County District Court, police found Tran with a loaded 9 mm handgun about seven feet from where he had been standing. A round was in the chamber. He was wearing a black fanny pack crammed with bullets. He had two more loaded 9 mm magazines in his pockets. In his backpack, police found two large knives and still more ammo.

“Tran admitted to reloading at least once in order to be able to continue shooting,” the police wrote in their complaint. In a search warrant affidavit, police alleged that Tran confessed, saying that he thought cars had been following him, and that the drivers had been parking in front of his house, revving their engines, and waking him up.

Detectives found a note on a desk in Tran's bedroom. “Random Kill, Fake Plates,” it said. All over his walls, he had scrawled “12/12/12.”

“There’s not a clear motive that we are aware of,” prosecutor Jessica Stott told HuffPost.

A judge granted Tran’s defense attorney Susan Drabek's request for a mental-health evaluation of her client. “He has a history of mental health issues“ she explained. “The family was without health insurance. … There was not much they could do without health insurance. The resources available to them were virtually nil.”

On the one-month anniversary of Devin’s murder, Aryal attended her first support group meeting. She said she hasn’t managed to do much more than sit on her couch with the TV’s white noise. She has been in her bedroom only to grab clothes. “I try to get in and out of there quickly,” she explained. She keeps her bedroom door closed at all times.

Aryal hasn't forgotten the toys that Devin left on her bed on his last night. She cannot touch them. She cannot look at them. “They're waiting for him to come back,” she said.

Six Weeks

Marquita Thompson's 21-year-old cousin Aleya Criswell had been the unintended victim of a shooting in her Fort Smith, Ark., home town on the afternoon of Dec. 29, 2012. Less than two months later, Thompson woke up in the middle of the night and headed to the bathroom. Peering into the living room, she thought she spotted Aleya sitting on the couch. So she sat down next to her.

“Did it hurt?” Thompson asked this vision of Aleya. She had always wanted to know.

Aleya giggled at her cousin's question. Yes, she said, she felt pain. “Like I got stung by a bee,” she assured. “That’s what she said,” Thompson recalled. “She told me to tell her mama that she loves her, that’s she’s okay.”

It was about 3 a.m. Thompson thought she talked to Aleya for about seven minutes before she flashed "a real pretty smile" -- just like in the photo a Texas aunt had made of her with angel wings -- and "floated up to my ceiling." Thompson was suddenly back in her bed. She felt a little scared

“It was like a dream to me,” Thompson, 29, said. “I don’t know if it was a dream.”

Thompson called her grandmother. It was one of those nights where nobody could sleep. Thompson’s grandmother told her she had just gotten off the phone with Aleya’s mother and one of Aleya's aunts. Neither had been visited by Aleya. They were just unable to stop thinking about her.

On the phone, Thompson started to cry. The two ended up talking for an hour.

Aleya’s death had felt so unreal, so arbitrary.

The first of the many dominos leading to Aleya's death fell the night before, at a high school basketball game. The sister of Aleya's partner fought with the sister's boyfriend -- her baby's father -- after he showed up with someone else. It got heated and physical. But later that night, the two patched things up. Only Aleya’s partner, Nikki, wouldn’t let it go. She arranged to confront her sister's boyfriend at a park the next day.

Nikki, her mother, Aleya’s brothers and other relatives went along. Aleya took a seat in the back of their van. When the boy didn’t show, they thought better of it and drove off. As they were leaving, they saw the boy with a friend. Jonathan Jackson, 23, opened fire on the van at May Avenue and North L Street, police said.

Aleya’s brothers won’t talk about the shooting. Shortly after it happened, Thompson said she got the brothers into a room. The driver gunned the van as the shots were fired. Once they got down the street, Aleya giggled. "Y’all, I think I was shot,” she said. The brothers thought Aleya was playing. “No, you all. I’ve been shot,” she said. She had been hit in the back.

They drove straight to Sparks Regional Medical Center. Relatives gathered by the dozens in a quiet room. When doctors broke the news Aleya had died, her mother, Clarissa Tucker, fainted. It took at least five minutes to revive her.

A few days earlier, on Christmas, as everyone in the family gathered to open presents, Aleya began to sing in the kitchen. “Everyone got real quiet,” recalled an aunt, Niecy Cannon, 44. “We were just listening to her. I’ve heard her sing but not like that. … Everybody cheered her on. I couldn’t believe it.”

“Y’all heard that?” Aleya asked. Singing was the only time she could get church-mouse shy.

Aleya was slowly coming into her own. After bouncing around, she had gotten seasonal work at the local Walmart that she thought might stick. She had effectively become a mother to her 3-year-old niece and 2-year-old nephew -- and liked it. She was still young enough to dream big, a bedroom gospel singer with aspirations for a real stage, runway beautiful who wanted to smile at something more than a cellphone camera.

Charles Thompson Sr., 74, Aleya’s grandfather, spends most of his days by himself while his wife Martha works as a health aide. Aleya visited often. He digs in his garden and tinkers with a ’76 Chevy pickup -- anything to stay out of the house, he said. Once inside, where he's not so busy, his granddaughter’s death will hit. “The minute I get in the house and sit down after about five or 10 minutes, I’m thinking about her,” he explained. “I try not to think about her too much but I can’t keep from it.”

Kathie Thompson, 47, one of Aleya’s aunts, said she can no longer listen to music. After a fire, Aleya and her girlfriend had moved into her apartment for a while. Every Sunday, the two would sit and listen to the slow jams program on 102.7 FM. She bought a little radio just for that purpose.

The radio sits on top of her microwave, unplugged. “I just don't do it anymore. I'm scared I might hear a song she liked on the radio,” Thompson said. “It’s just way too difficult.”

Tucker can still hear Aleya in the house.

"I have been having really bad anxiety attacks,” Tucker said. “I keep thinking I hear her. I have to realize that she's not really there anymore. I can hear her singing."

Kathie has seen her, too, once while staying at Tucker's after Aleya’s death. Her little niece had seen something at the back door and woke her. “We were sleeping in the living room,” Kathie Thompson remembered. “I raised up. It was a shadow. You know how you know a person’s face? It was her … We all just stared at the back window.”

Cannon said she had seen Aleya twice sitting in her living room. A couple of weeks ago, she spotted Aleya standing in her hallway. She couldn’t go back to sleep. Her husband, she said, has yet to see his niece. “He sleeps too hard,” Cannon explained. “If I see her I’ll tap him … I’ll ask him ‘Did you see her?’ and he’ll say no. He’ll go back to sleep and he’ll try to hold me. But that doesn’t help.”

Courtney Robinson, 19, used to date one of Aleya’s brothers, Tino. Even after their breakup, she still talked to Aleya all the time. About 10 days after the killing, she tried to chat with Aleya on Facebook. “Hey girl,” she wrote. It took Robinson five minutes to realize Aleya wasn’t going to write back.

Shortly after Aleya's death, Tino discovered she had saved a recording on her phone of herself singing. He quickly downloaded it and passed it from one family member to another and another. It’s been on heavy rotation since. “We all got it on our phone," Kathie said.

Marquita said she thinks Aleya recorded it in her bathroom. Tucker insisted she recorded her daughter in her dining room before Thanksgiving. It’s one minute, 19 seconds long and Aleya doesn’t start to sing until 17 seconds in.

The slow R&B sounds far away and distorted. You need headphones to hear Aleya’s soft, high pleas. She knows this is not a good take. Midway, she complains that her voice is cracking. Toward the very end, she says half-jokingly, “I fucked up.” She barely raises her voice above the canned beat.

“You say you wanna be with me,” she coos just high enough so you can hear the words. “But you cannot right now.”

Kathie plays that one minute and 19 seconds every morning. “That’s all I do,” she said. “I have to hear her voice. … That’s the only voice we got.”

10 Months

Gun violence happened before Sandy Hook elementary and the Aurora theater shooting. In some instances, the media took an interest. Several print outlets, including The Philadelphia Inquirer, reported on the discovery of Melanie Colon’s body on May 12. The 22-year-old mother had gone missing a few days earlier. She was found in a wooded area behind an apartment building, a 10 or 15-minute drive north of her home. Colon was struck six times at close range with 9 mm bullets. Reynaldo Torres, the male friend she was last seen with, hasn't been seen since.

Outside Melanie’s house is a large spray-painted mural of her framed in bands of heavenly yellow. The mural, hung on a utility pole, is can’t-miss on their skinny street in North Philadelphia. At night, when the feeling strikes, the family will illuminate the sign with white Christmas lights or candles on a wicker shelf they've tied to the pole. They'll offer Catholic prayers to her.

Inside the house, there’s another large picture of Melanie on the mantel in the front room with more pictures tucked into the frame. Upstairs, there’s her bedroom. It’s a sunny Tuesday in early March. But it’s like her murder happened yesterday.

“Yo man, I didn’t know that was your daughter.”

The man was in Louis Colon’s ear. He had come across the narrow street, this man in the orange Polo shirt, to give Colon a grip and a message. “When you find that nigger, I got some hot shit,” he promised. “We’ll light [him] up.”

Colon just nodded, slumped his rounded shoulders, and made his I-got-to-goes to the man.

He jumped into his silver SUV. He just wanted to take his murdered daughter’s 5-year-old son to the playground. He'd just gotten off the phone with his therapist and was talking about seeing him that evening. Those sessions had been a near daily activity since the murder.

He knew the man in the Polo shirt from prison, where they served together -- Colon doing four years for distributing cocaine nearly a decade ago. The man had recently gotten out. Colon was surprised to see him, and even more surprised how little he'd changed. “Yo, I don’t like that,” Colon said from behind the wheel as his car snaked past his neighborhood’s trash-lined vacant houses and bombed out lots. “If I see him, I’m going to avoid him.”

Colon's face, already damp, started to perspire more heavily. “I just want to leave,” he continued, his voice rough and low. He has asthma and keeps an albuterol pump with him at all times. Every breath sounded like effort. “I should have never came back to the neighborhood. If I could have never came back to this neighborhood, maybe my daughter would still be alive.” In the neighborhood, he'd been robbed at gunpoint twice. A week after Melanie was killed, a man was fatally shot in the face. His wife found the man and comforted him until the police arrived.

This revenge offer was not unusual, Colon said. As soon as Melanie's body was found, the whole neighborhood seemed to offer itself up as gun dealer, getaway driver, whatever needed to be done. Friends, associates, just guys Colon knew as faces on the block urged him toward revenge. He hated the pressure.

“The worst part is thinking about it -- murdering somebody,” Colon said, pacing in his front room, Melanie’s big picture staring down at him from the mantel. “That’s not me. I wasn’t brought up like that. … They think it’s going to trigger me.” He'd gotten close to 10 offers, he said, most right after Melanie was killed.

“I had to get rough with a guy,” Colon said. “Not rough, but a little hostile. … What good is it going to do? For real, I don’t want anymore killing. I don’t want anybody else to die.”

It’s hard keeping it together. Colon and his wife Marybell, who he married after his prison stint, are raising nine children and grandchildren between them. They have Melanie’s son on weekends. Marybell works during the day at a nonprofit that helps teens and young adults earn their GED and enroll in college. At night, after a few Budweisers or Coronas, Colon will put on some of Melanie’s favorite salsa or merengue music and dance in the street staring up at her mural. Sometimes he doesn't remember doing it.

Colon suffers from depression and has for years; he was diagnosed with it in prison. He said he felt guilt about getting locked up and not being there for his kids. He and Marybell have been going to Bible study on Wednesday nights and Sunday mornings. Every day, at noon, Marybell calls her husband. "Where are you?" she asks. "What are you doing?"

“He doesn’t talk about suicide or anything like that. You just don’t know,” explained Marybell, who has known Colon since grade school. “Because of that, I watch him a lot, you know? I keep in touch with him. We all keep in touch with each other. We are all watching each other.” Every night, Marybell goes through two questions with Colon: What was your high? What was your low?

When he is not going to counseling, Colon operates as the family’s safety net. Throughout the day, he checks in on everyone, taking care of doctor appointments, handling the groceries, making runs to the playground. When his schizophrenic son can't sleep, Colon will stay up all night with him. Another son has autism and lives with a grandmother down the block. If he calls in need of one-on-one time, Colon is there, ready with his son's favorite McDonald's. Around the corner, he makes sure to look after his sister and her three kids. "I call him 'The Eagle,'" Marybell said.

The morning of Melanie’s disappearance, Colon’s arm went numb. He thought it might be early signs of a heart attack. Melanie urged him to go to the emergency room. He had to be transferred to another hospital. The checkup took all day. After running an errand, Melanie returned home. She talked to her father one last time. “She’s home,” he said. “That’s what comes into my head -- she’s safe.” He pointed to his head. “I told her stay home with the baby.”

During my visit 10 months after the murder, the home was bare, as if preserved as a Melanie museum. There was no clutter. No warm food smells. Tuesday night was Melanie's night to cook. Two weeks ago, Marybell found one of Melanie’s green dress shirts in a pile of clothes in the basement. She put the shirt up to her nose. “It smelled like her,” she recalled. “I just bawled. I couldn’t take it.” She went upstairs and showed Colon.

Louis' son, Ralphiee, 18, discovered his parents in communion over the shirt. “You want to see something crazy?” he asked. He went upstairs and retrieved a mesh laundry bag full of Melanie’s clothes from his closet. The bag had been his secret. He met the family in the front room and offered up the bag filled with her old shirts and long johns.

“Everyone started pulling clothes and smelling them and crying,” Marybell said. “It was like Melanie was still there,” Ralphiee explained. “Her scent was still on the clothes.”

By then, Ralphiee had decided that he couldn’t live in the house anymore. “We’re angry all the time,” he explained. “It’s mixed emotions at my house. My sister lived with us. She lived with mom. She lived with dad. I hate being in this house. I hate being home.” He didn’t make a big deal about it. He just moved into his younger cousin Dominic’s house. Even there, he wakes up crying.

Melanie had been Ralphiee's safety net after his father went to prison and his biological mother entered rehab. Melanie made sure that he was picked up from school, that he was well fed, that he was happy. Even after their father returned home and married Marybell, Melanie could be fiercely protective. Just a few weeks before her death, Melanie heard that Ralphiee had tussled with a guy who was high on PCP at a nearby Chinese carry-out. It was past midnight, but Melanie grabbed a bat and went looking for the guy. When she found him hiding in a house, he refused to come outside and fight her. "If anything would happen to her brothers and sisters, Melanie was on it," Marybell said.

Ralphiee was the last family member to see her alive. He was supposed to go with her that evening, but he couldn’t fit in Torres’ Mazda two-seater. Melanie said she was just going to get her son something to eat; she'd be right back. In his dreams, she looks the same way she left him on May 8. “Her hair is short, blond, crimped-up like it was,” he said. “She had her black tights on, her black flats, and she had her checkered red and white shirt on. She looked really beautiful that day.”

Ralphiee was in the process of finishing high school. Now he visits her grave at night and posts photos of those trips to the Facebook tribute page he created. It’s become his home -- the place where he can write about his lowest moments, post from an endless cache of old snapshots (Melanie at prom dressed in lavender silk, Melanie with her son, Melanie with her eyes closed blowing a kiss), encourage justice for his sister and chat with “#Team Melanie.”

"I'm not letting MY SISTERS CASE GET COLD," Ralphiee wrote his Team recently. "Don't never give up."

Revenge means helping find his sister's killer and seeing him get justice in a courtroom. About four months ago, Ralphiee said he got a tip from a girl in Camden. The girl claimed to have spotted the man Melanie was last seen with -- Torres. Ralphiee texted her. He and his father arranged to meet her in Philly. “I thought it was real,” Ralphiee said.

Colon remembered his heart pounding as they waited in the car for the girl outside a downtown shopping mall. “It was crazy, man. We really thought, oh man.” He pauses from his seat on the couch. He just stops talking. They waited three hours. But she never showed.

Detective Charles Grebloski, one of two Philadelphia police investigators assigned to Melanie's murder, said the case is cold. “Right now, Torres is the only lead in the case,” he said. “There’s nothing. They dumped her in a park, a public park. We have no witnesses there of her getting dumped. It looks like she was just dumped there. You could tell it was there for a day or two.”

In October, Colon’s namesake, “Little Louis,” was arrested after fighting with one of his father’s friends. The friend had fallen on hard times and had been staying with the family. Marybell and Ralphiee think Little Louis's grief sparked the fight.

Little Louis had argued with Melanie before her death. He never got the chance to offer a real apology. His anger issues have gotten worse. He is still in jail on charges stemming from his arrest.

The police thought Little Louis had a gun and searched the house. They didn’t find one. The family is conflicted over whether Little Louis ever brought a gun home.

Marybell said she thinks he had something. Colon said he confronted his son about it and he told him it was a BB gun. "He wouldn't lie to me," Colon insisted. "I don't think he would."

Although he never saw the gun, Ralphiee is sure his brother had one. He said Little Louis had told him about the gun, that it was for protection. “After Melanie, you can’t trust nobody out here,” Ralphiee remembered Little Louis telling him.

“I thought it was a real gun," Ralphiee said. "He always told me he was going to get a license to carry. Do you need a license to carry a BB gun?” Marybell said she worried that if he had a gun, he might use it on whoever he thought murdered Melanie.

In mid-March, Colon’s therapist threatened to call the police on him during a morning session. “He wanted me to talk about my daughter. He wanted to ask me some questions about what I’ve been going through. I didn’t feel like it. He said 'you’re not [being] compliant.'”

Compliant. That's a prison word. Colon had enough. He kicked a chair across the therapist's room. “I felt a little relief,” he said.

1 Year, 11 Months

Al Roberson, 61, lives next door to the house where his 26-year-old son Cory was murdered on March 25, 2011. He sees the one-story wooden house, beige with white trim, every day, and still regularly makes a pilgrimage to the property's edge in the old part of Bakersfield, Calif. He has the blueprint memorized. He thinks sometimes he can see Cory inside peering out from the window in the room where he was shot to death. It's been vacant since.

The house was last occupied by Roberson’s sister. Moments after Cory was shot, she ran next door and told him what had happened. She had the gun -- what looked like a sawed-off .22-caliber rifle -- in her hand, he said.

Roberson wondered what his sister was doing with the rifle. He didn’t waste time trying to get a straight answer. He ran to Cory, finding him on the floor in a pool of his own blood in the back room.

Cory was shot in the back of the head behind his right ear. He wasn’t moving. Roberson held his son in his arms and begged him to wake up. He realized Cory wasn't breathing, and laid him down. "Not him Lord," Roberson said, standing in prayer. He could do nothing but pace in circles in the room, trying to think of what to do, and what to say. “My whole body just got limp,” he remembered. “I was weak. I was in a daze.” The ambulance arrived.

The events that led to Cory's death are still being debated. But the identify of Cory’s killer was never in dispute. Cory’s 21-year-old cousin, Daniel Torres, confessed to being the triggerman.

Self-defense, he claimed. He said he'd been fighting with Cory and had fired the gun by accident in panic. Torres' small build was no match for Cory, who was 6-foot-3 and linebacker strong -- at least that was the theory. Torres wasn’t so confident in his tale to stick around after the murder. He fled the crime scene in a ’97 Oldsmobile sedan, according to the one news brief that told the story. He didn’t surrender to police until two days later.

A definitive narrative of Cory's murder would never be dissected in a courtroom or find a verdict from a jury box. The two cousins would never get their day in court. Law enforcement authorities saw enough in Torres' account that they decided not to prosecute him. “Every lead we got was followed up and investigated extensively,” explained Bakersfield police Detective Richard Dossey. “The District Attorney’s Office said it was a self-defense issue. … I know the family was not happy. However it was not my final decision.”

The investigation instead continued among family members. Those on the Torres side avoided all discussion of the subject. On the other side, Cory's mother and former girlfriend talked to witnesses and tested their own common sense. That side, Cory's side, found big holes in Torres’ story. It's split the family further apart. There may never be a reasonable outcome.

“There are so many levels I feel about my son,” explained Camille Mooney, 52, Cory’s mother. “The loss goes on and on and on. Cory was our protector. He was the man of the family. It was just me and his sister.” Mooney and Roberson split up when Cory was 5 years old.

“We live in a neighborhood that could be dangerous. We did never worry about it because we had Cory," she said. "He was well known. He protected our family. I feel so exposed to the world because I don’t have my son to protect us anymore. People have come into our yard and stolen things that were in our yard. That would never have happened when our son was in the yard.”

Cory's protective nature had once extended to his killer. Mooney and Roberson both recalled that a year prior to Cory’s death, Torres had called on Cory to help him get rid of a gun. Torres had supposedly shot somebody at a convenience store in the southwest part of Bakersfield. Cory raced across town to help his cousin dispose of the evidence. He took the gun and went to a friend’s wrecking yard and had it melted down, Mooney said.

As a teenager, Cory had tried on a thug persona, but it didn't fit. Unlike a lot of his peers, who entered the ranks of Bakersfield's Bloods, Cory didn't need a gun to make a living. He drove an 18-wheeler and then did temp factory work. He dated his high-school sweetheart Irene Delgado off and on his entire adult life. Due to a childhood injury, Cory could not conceive children. When he and Delgado broke up and she had two daughters by other fathers, Cory raised them as his own. He was in the delivery room for her oldest. They had broken up again just a few months before his death. But they were never far from a reconciliation. “If he loved you, he never stopped loving you,” Delgado said. “He loved hard, I guess you could say. If he loved you like with me, he was always in tune with his feelings. He knew at an early age who he was.”

Cory was alone on the road a lot and had time to think. If he struggled with something, he shared openly. He could be the opposite of macho, showing up at his mother's doorstep just looking to talk. “He trusted me enough to lay in my lap and cry as a grown adult man,” Mooney said. “It’s a rare thing that a mother gets to have with her son.”

Now, Delgado has developed a routine if she needs to cry over Cory’s death. She waits for her daughters to go to sleep. Then she goes to her living room and puts on their favorite songs -- “Second Nature" by Destiny’s Child is one -- and looks at pictures of Cory. She has a specific spot on the couch -- “the left side” -- where she will sit.

“Usually when it’s late, I will cry myself to sleep,” Delgado explained.

The Cory who cried in his mother's lap, who evokes tears, who listened to Destiny’s Child, isn’t the Cory as described by Torres’ family on the night of his death. That Cory, they say, wanted to kill his cousin. Despite repeated requests, neither Torres nor his mother would comment for this story.

Mooney's side has heard a different version of events. Earlier that day, Cory thought Torres’ girlfriend had disrespected his aunt. Cory, who had been drinking, and Torres had words. When Roberson saw them hours before the shooting, he thought they had cooled off. He said he saw Torres take Cory home.

Mooney said Torres dropped Cory at her house. He was laughing and joking, she remembered, maybe a little buzzed. "I didn't even know they were having words," she added. "He didn't even mention it. It couldn't have been that important."

Delgado had heard directly that the two had been hanging out and laughing at a convenience store an hour or so before the shooting. She told me she passed on every tip to the Bakersfield detective -- even the rumors about the shooting being premeditated -- but never heard back.

If Delgado can find no resolution, she's decided to create one. She recently started writing a novelization of her life with Cory and his murder. In the novel version, she calls herself "Adonia" and Cory “Thaylen.” When they first meet, there are references to gods and goddesses, charm at full throttle.

“She opened her eyes then looked around as she began to have a feeling that someone somewhere was watching her close by. Her eyes caught his. She didn’t know who he was but, he was the most beautiful man she had undoubtedly ever seen. Her heart was stuck in her throat and she felt as if it were beating 100 times a minute. Adonia didn’t believe in love at first sight, had always debated with people about the subject matter. However, the feeling that consumed her eyes, body, mind and soul, well, she accepted with defeat what she was now experiencing would be the closest involvement to that emotion she would probably ever feel in her life …

He knew he needed her now and would always need her. He had been very aware of how he felt about people at an early age. He knew even if he wasn’t honest with anyone else he had to be honest with himself. Opening up his heart to love was a rare commodity but when he did he loved hard. He couldn’t fathom what it was about her that made him want to give her all of him. I don’t even know this girl but I’m gonna find out, he thought to himself.”

Like in real life, Delgado said that the Cory character will be murdered by a family member. But this time, she and Cory will have a child together. "His son is going to end up seeking justice once he grows up," she explained. "It's going to end up being a thought-out successful way. ... He figures out some evidence to convict the guy."

Roberson hasn't found such an outlet. He just keeps watching over that house. He’s the one caught in the middle between the families. It’s still his nephew who murdered his son. “My son was pretty big, okay?” he said. “I feel maybe Daniel was scared. [Cory] might have jumped at him or said something and the gun went off. That’s what I’m hoping.”

But Roberson knows better. “It looked like the way Cory was laying, he might have been sitting down,” he said. He wondered how his son came to be shot in the back of the head, and why his sister took the murder weapon.

“I wished it was somebody else,” he explained. “I would have handled it myself.” He told me he would have “emptied a gun” into his son’s killer. “But it was my sister’s kid. I just swallowed it. Cried inside."

On Jan. 20 of this year, Cory’s sister’s fiancé, Otis Taylor II, was fatally shot outside his grandmother’s house in Bakersfield. Two decades earlier, Taylor’s father had been killed blocks from there.

On March 12, Cory’s sister gave birth to a baby boy. She named him Otis Taylor III.

Mooney said only Torres' sister has come to visit the newborn. The rest of that side of the family has stayed away. "They haven't laid eyes on him," she said. "That's great with me."

Nine Years, Two Months

On a recent Wednesday afternoon, Jenny Heyman drove 45 miles or so from Riverside to Whittier, Calif., just south of Los Angeles. There was traffic all the way. She felt relief when she finally made it to the flower shop near the cemetery. The people in the shop know her well and are patient with her. After reviewing the flowers that were available, she made sure to pick out something that would last in the heat -- an important consideration she had learned from trial and error over the years. Roses or daisies, she found out, can’t hold up in the Southern California heat. She picked purple chrysanthemums and ordered three dozen.

Heyman then made her way to Rose Hills Memorial Park, Rainbow Gardens Lot 1035, Grave No. 3, to see her son, Chris, who was 17 when he was killed. To the east, she had a view of a meandering pond and tall, swaying weeping willows. It was unusually hot, about 95 degrees. Heyman brought an umbrella to shade the headstone.

Chris was born on Nov. 6, 1986, and died on Jan. 18, 2004. On the headstone, he beams from his high school yearbook photo, sitting in front of a generic sky blue background in a maroon-collared shirt and dark tie. A surfboard under a palm tree and an airplane had been engraved into the black stone. On their memorial website, his parents wrote: “struggled a long time to finally get this done."

The headstone lies flat on the ground. Heyman took out an edger and cleared away the scruff. After she was finished, she poured water over the headstone and dried it with a white terry cloth towel. She then got out a toothbrush to scrub the grime from the etchings, her back to the blazing heat. Finally, once the headstone was cool enough and clean enough, she rubbed it with a waxy gel called “cultured marble clear polish."

“I needed to see him,” Heyman said. “It calms me down to be with him." Her mother-in-law had just undergone heart surgery. Her daughter and her daughter’s family had moved in with Heyman and her husband, Bert, temporarily while they sell their house. For the past three months, she had been having pain in her joints that doctors couldn't seem to figure out. At times, she hasn't been able to walk.

Heyman talked to Chris about “everything and nothing.”

Heyman had been there for hours and still wasn’t done. “I’m still cleaning it,” she said. Finally, she declared, "it looks pretty again." As she got ready to leave, she cried. She gave him a kiss and walked away. She hit rush hour and it was hell getting home. In the car, she sang along to Usher, remembering that Chris once danced to the R&B singer as he watched him on TV. For a while after his murder, she'd talk to Chris while she was driving.

Heyman had waited up the night Chris was killed. He hadn’t made it home before curfew. Normally, he’d call. “I was calling him every half-hour and it was getting late and he was supposed to be home and I kept calling him and calling him and he never answered,” she said.

She was alone when the police knocked on her door at 4 a.m. The police showed her Chris’ driver’s license. That’s not Chris, she told them. Her husband Bert was working the graveyard shift at the Miller Brewing Co., Irwindale plant. When the police reached him, they told him he needed to come home right away. “Can’t this wait another couple hours when I get off?” he asked.

A man emptied a modified AP-9 fully-automatic submachine gun into the Mustang that Chris and his friends were driving. They were at the I-210 freeway overpass, about a mile from home. Chris and a friend were killed. The shooter, and an accomplice, had gone out in search of meth, and believed the Mustang had almost hit them. It may have been a different car. That's all it took. Nearly 50 shell casings were found at the scene.

In the weeks leading up to the shooting, according to trial evidence, the shooter had fired on two others with the machine gun. This time, Chris died instantly in the back seat with fatal wounds to the head and neck. His friend, Blake Harris, slumped over dying in the passenger seat.

The Mustang driver pulled into a McDonald’s and called 911. According to the transcript, he told the dispatcher: “Something happened. My back window is shattered and my two friends are like almost dead. Their heads are bleeding dramatically.” The dispatcher replied: “OK. Was somebody shooting?” The friend explained: “I don’t know. My back windows are shattered and both of them are down bleeding. … One’s bleeding like all over.”

In the aftermath, their town of Rancho Cucamonga and Chris’ high school embraced the Heymans, offering endless tokens of healing. The night after the murders, residents gathered at a nearby church to mourn and tell stories. The mortuary donated Chris’ light blue and silver casket for the standing room-only funeral. The high school instituted two scholarships in Chris’ name and named the December soccer tournament after him. Every year, Heyman and her daughter Tanya hand out the trophies to the winning team. In a rose garden on school grounds, the staff added a plaque in Chris’ memory. The local newspaper put Chris’ death on the front page every day for a month.

The night of Chris' funeral, Lanny Woosley was arrested and charged with the murders. He was convicted of both murders as well as nine other crimes including three counts of attempted murder and a carjacking. He was sentenced to multiple life sentences. Heyman said the district attorney “was a great guy.”

“He promised us in Chris’ honor he was going to have the trial within two years of when he was killed,” Heyman said. “It was two years to the date that it happened.”

About a year later, the Heymans packed up their house and moved 20 minutes away. It got to be too difficult to even go to the grocery store. There was always someone staring at them and whispering. It didn't help that the shooter's mother worked at the checkout. The Heymans were tired of seeing the freeway overpass, of trying to avoid it. All the reminders could leave Jenny Heyman mute.

The conviction and all the anniversary vigils and trophies in her son’s name have never been enough. Heyman had stayed home to raise Chris. Now she spent her days as a postal worker delivering mail. Once on her route in a new development in Corona, she lost it when a Cessna airplane flew overhead. These were the types of planes her son flew in flying lessons. It knocked her hard. Heyman called her boss in tears. He had to tell her to breathe.

The post office job has turned out to be an ironic choice. Even nine years later, grief has a way of disorienting Heyman. When it boils up, she starts forgetting things and can lose her sense of direction. She might as well be on another planet. “It’s something I can’t control,” she said. “All the sudden you don’t realize where you are going. All the sudden I forget everything.”

Boys that look like Chris still throw her. “I have to realize it’s not him,” she said. It takes a moment to shake the sensation. Seeing his old high school friends now as grown men confuses her, too. "I think that timed stopped at Chris' age," she explained.

Heyman said that November (the month of his birthday) through January (the month of his death) is her “numb period.” She feels nothing. She can't control it. She doubts antidepressants will make a difference, so she doesn't try. The numbing is just the way her body deals.

Every year on Chris' birthday, she returns to the overpass. Twenty-one was tough. Heyman bought a piece of chain-link fence and tied it to the bridge. She weaved a ribbon through it to spell Chris' name. She was proud that she thought of something that didn't blow away. "Sometimes I think it would be easier to be dead than alive," she said.

The day before our first interview, Heyman said she experienced one of her mental fogs. I asked what triggered it. “Talking to you,” she replied matter of fact.

At least Heyman can talk about Chris. Almost a decade later, the loss still has the power to overwhelm Chris' dad, Bert. The grief has only gotten worse, more impossible. After a few minutes answering questions, he broke down and stopped talking. He agreed to email me instead. That night, after finishing work at the brewery, he found a quiet office and began to write and cry. He finished the email from home.

“I’ve always loved my kids equally as much as possible, but there is something special about a Dad’s relationship with his Son just as there’s a special relationship a Dad has with his Daughter. I guess for me he was a chip off the old block, that’s my boy, he was my buddy,” he wrote. "All the hopes and dreams that I didn’t achieve, were what I’d hoped he would. And that was taken away. … I’ll always have to think about what could have been.”

Something as routine as eating lunch still sticks out. Every night, Chris would stop whatever he was doing and make his father lunch before his graveyard shift. “How many Dad's can say that their Son's made them lunch, yes I paid him $5 bucks a day to make my lunch to give him some extra spending money, but he would be out with his friends and he'd come home before I left for work so he could make sure my lunch was as fresh as could be, he'd then go back out with his friends and still get home by curfew,” he wrote. “Amazing kid, I still miss those sandwiches, I always knew they were made with love. Or when Carl's Jr came out with the $6 dollar burger and my wife wasn't home, there would be a Carl's Jr bag with burger, fries and a coke. He'd buy it with his own money, never expecting me to pay him back. Just wanting to be sure that I had something to eat.”

Bert goes on in another email the next day. I had asked about Chris’ flying lessons. “I can remember Chris' solo flight like it was yesterday, it was agony and ecstasy all at once. I was as proud as I could be watching him take off in a small two seater Cessna from #24 runway at Cable Airport in Upland, CA. ... To watch him take off and bank left was amazing, to watch him circle the airport come in for a touchdown and take right back off exhilarating. He did that I believe 4 times, (we have it on 8mm tape) when he landed and came back to where we were waiting.”

Benjamin Hart, Alana Horowitz, Peter Finocchiaro, Melissa Jeltsen, Brad Shannon, Mark Hanrahan, Adam Goldberg, Chelsea Kiene, William Wrigley, Preston Maddock contributed research to this story.

Scott Prouty, '47 Percent' Filmmaker, Reveals Identity On 'The Ed Show'

2013-03-13T20:00:00-04:00

NEW YORK -- The man who changed the 2012 election is named Scott Prouty. The 38-year-old bartender at the Boca Raton, Fla., fundraiser that doomed Mitt Romney's presidential campaign came forward Wednesday in an interview with MSNBC's Ed Schultz.

Prouty, a Midwest native, took his Canon camera to the fundraiser, thinking Romney might pose for photos with the event staff. Instead, he captured Romney speaking about "the 47 percent who are with him, who are dependent on government, who believe that, that they are victims, who believe that government has the responsibility to care for them. Who believe that they are entitled to health care, to food, to housing."

The bartender said in a series of embargoed phone and in-person interviews with The Huffington Post that he decided to make the video public and posted clips online, hoping they would go viral.

Prouty -- who now tweets as @AnneOnymous670 -- didn't own a car, and spent his free time volunteering with his girlfriend at a South Florida SPCA, where he gave a HuffPost reporter a tour of the horse rescue operation (donate here). He said he worried about what releasing the video would mean for his employment and for the company he worked for. On some nights as a bartender for South Florida's super wealthy, he could pull down more than $1,000, so losing the gig was not a thought he relished. But he finally decided it was his civic duty to release his film. He had made a risky decision before to do what he thought was right, when he dove into alligator-infested water to save a drowning woman. (That really happened.)

Before the final presidential debate, held in Florida, HuffPost and Prouty met for Budweisers at a waterfront bar. He was pondering whether to go public with his role in making the video and ultimately decided he didn't want to become a distraction, and instead wanted the focus to remain on the remarks themselves. He climbed on his motorcycle and sped off, without a helmet.

After deciding to release the video, Prouty made it his mission to get the film clips out there. "I decided I was going to make a 24-hour a day push to make sure it went as far and wide as it possibly, possibly could go," he explained. "It's been a long journey for sure. A lot of people think I just sent it to the news media on a disc or something and then forgot about it. I had been pounding it."

When Prouty talked about the film's rollout, he sounded like any indie film director looking for word-of-mouth magic. "I wanted to have a build-up," he said. "I wanted to have it viral as much as I could possibly get it viral. And then I was hoping obviously a serious reporter could jump on it at the right time [and] make it pop. ... I wish I almost did it a little bit later because I think it would have been more crushing. But it all worked out obviously."

BuzzFeed offers a thorough rundown of where Prouty shopped his Romney reel and where he posted it. On May 31, under "Romney Exposed," he began posting audio snippets to YouTube. Soon he started hitting the comment sections of The Huffington Post -- not the best way to stand out among all the reader debates.

Prouty said he later posted it to Daily Kos with mixed results. The Daily Kos readers ended up bouncing him from the site, suspecting his footage was bogus. He threw up clips on Pastebin. He did it in the comments of The Washington Post's stories. "Just trying to go build a little head of steam and get people talking about it," he said.

By late August, he said there were a few sites, including BuzzFeed, that had picked up at least one of his Romney videos. He said he had some success when he posted videos as the MSNBC host Rachel Maddow on YouTube. "She came out and denied having any knowledge of it," he said. "But she linked to the video and left it on her site all weekend long."

The filmmaker said that before the Republican National Convention, he contacted the Romney campaign directly. "I sent it to the Romney people ad nauseum," he said. "They knew about it." When he saw Romney give his acceptance speech in Tampa, he wondered what the candidate knew about his videos. He says he never got a response from the campaign. (He had posted a clip of the 47 percent comments specifically on YouTube, but to a different account, which is where HuffPost was the first to find and republish it.)

But Prouty didn't wait for a reporter to find him.

He found James Carter, the grandson of former President Jimmy Carter, who had discovered a talent for opposition research and finding gotcha videos deep in the C-Span archives. Prouty had followed Carter's work on YouTube. "He had good sense enough to follow me back when he saw my videos after I followed him," Prouty said. "Then he had the good sense enough to contact me after that."

Prouty said he wanted Carter to help him get in touch with Mother Jones' David Corn. He had been a big admirer of Corn's work -- especially his investigative pieces on Romney and the Hong Kong-based Global-Tech Appliances, a firm that sought to profit from U.S. outsourcing. He saw Corn on television all the time, he said. Maybe the veteran journalist could get his little film on the air. "They were picked," he said of Carter and Corn.

The one thing that now rankles Prouty is the idea that Corn uncovered anything. It was already out there. "Corn sort of -- he's capitalized on this for all it's worth and that's what the goal was," he said. "I don't want to say it the wrong way. He didn't uncover."

Prouty put the original tape in the mail to Corn. "I sent it to him in regular mail, taped to a small, like, a little note card in an envelope," he said.

Mitt Romney, '47 Percent' Filmmaker Had Encounter Prior To Infamous Speech

2013-03-13T16:01:38-04:00

WASHINGTON -- The bartender who secretly filmed Mitt Romney's infamous "47 percent" remarks at a Boca Raton fundraiser last May had an idea of what the former Massachusetts governor and GOP presidential nominee was really like. The two had crossed paths before.

The filmmaker tells The Huffington Post that he had actually met Romney at a previous fundraiser, held months before at the home of private equity manager Marc Leder. At that event, which included drinks and a quick speech by the presidential candidate, the would-be filmmaker also tended bar.

He and Romney shared a typical bartender-to-patron moment.

"I handed him a diet Coke with lemon on it," the filmmaker recalled, "because I was told that that's what he drank."

Romney didn't acknowledge his server at all.

"He took it and turned and didn't say anything," the filmmaker explained. "I presented him the exact right drink that he wanted ... Had it there, sitting there on a napkin. He took it out of my hand and turned his back without a 'thank you' or anything else."

HuffPost has agreed to withhold the name of the surreptitious filmmaker until he breaks his silence on MSNBC's "The Ed Show" Wednesday evening, followed by an appearance on HuffPost Live Thursday morning. In interviews over the last several months, he laid out his thinking before and after Romney's speech.

The filmmaker had worked in the service industry for years, starting out after high school as a club doorman in Boston. He slowly worked his way up to bartender and then operations manager and general manager at a downtown nightclub. He had wanted to be a cop and hoped to get a degree in criminal justice from Northeastern. When he couldn't afford to complete his degree, he still had his night-club jobs.

He moved to Florida about 10 years ago. He told HuffPost that former President Bill Clinton had partly inspired him to release the video: He had worked at a Clinton event at which the politician had made an effort to greet the cooks and waiters. Romney had been the opposite.

"You can tell a lot about someone the way they take a drink from you," he said. "[Romney] took it and just turned his back."

'47 Percent' Filmmaker Was Snubbed By Daily Kos

2013-03-13T12:32:00-04:00

WASHINGTON -- The maker of the "47 percent" video that dealt a crushing blow to Mitt Romney's presidential campaign attempted to publish the footage on the website Daily Kos, but he said he was banned after uploading 10 snippets of video.

"There was some pushback from people you wouldn't expect to push back," he told The Huffington Post. "To be banned from Daily Kos -- I had been a longtime reader. ... That was maybe the biggest surprise."

His profile is still accessible on Daily Kos, but individual items have been taken down.

The man said that other Daily Kos community members accused him of posting fake videos and didn't believe his protestations to the contrary. "They later apologized. Kos chastised the community," the man said.

Daily Kos founder Markos Moulitsas explained in an email to HuffPost that the filmmaker had "posted 6-second clips of audio, without offering any proof or further authentication. The Daily Kos community is hyper-sensitive to people trying to play them for fools, and his claims weren't borne out by the audio clips he was posting." (The clips can be found here.)

Moulitsas added, "Had he posted the full video that eventually came out, things would've obviously been different."

HuffPost has agreed to keep the filmmaker's identity secret until he introduces himself to the country on MSNBC's "The Ed Show" Wednesday evening, and then appears on HuffPost Live Thursday morning.

"It was harder than you imagine to get the story out there," the man said.

'47 Percent' Filmmaker Once Saved Drowning Woman

2013-03-13T10:59:26-04:00

HOLLYWOOD, Fla. -- The bartender who put himself at risk to do his civic duty by exposing Mitt Romney's damning "47 percent" speech had found himself compelled by a similar heroic impulse seven years earlier.

In 2005, the man was at work when he heard that a car had plunged into a nearby canal along Interstate 75. Realizing that he may need to cut the person out of the car, he quickly phoned a co-worker and asked him to bring a knife.

The man dove into the canal and worked to free the woman, but was unable to. The co-worker and a bystander dove into the canal and handed the knife off to the videographer, who quickly cut the woman out and pulled her from the car.

In an interview with The Huffington Post, the filmmaker recalled that everyone on the shore thought the woman in the car was dead when he arrived, but he jumped in anyway. "It had to be done," he said. "It was kind of fun for me. I remember being underwater smiling and saying, 'This is going to work out. This is going to be fine.'"

The story would be difficult to believe if it weren't for the public recognition he received at the time. The towns of Davie and Weston, Fla., both publicly congratulated all three for their effort to save the woman -- an effort that, stunningly, succeeded.

The future videographer said the incident taught him something. "I did it because I could," he explained. "It did teach me a lesson: to jump in when you can."

The bartender "was able to cut through the seatbelt freeing the victim, lifting and handing her to [the bystander] who brought her to shore and began life saving CPR," reads one of the public proclamations. "These efforts brought the previously unconscious woman back to consciousness after which she was transported to the hospital when the ambulance arrived."

The man wasn't finished. "[A]fter saving the driver, [the man] continued to dive into the dark waters, searching the vehicle for a child after noticing a child safety seat, but fortunately there had been no child in the car."

Once police arrived, they also noticed a child seat in the car and wanted to check for themselves to make sure it was empty. But they waited until a backup team with shotguns could arrive, the man recalled to HuffPost.

The canal, they noticed, was crawling with alligators.

Editor's Note: The Huffington Post has withheld certain identifying details, but the videographer is scheduled to come forward in an interview with "The Ed Show" on Wednesday night and to appear on HuffPost Live on Thursday morning, at which point this story will be updated with those details and a copy of the proclamation.